The Rise Of Konoha's Night Storm
by BlackDragon-2009
Summary: Jiraiya reveals Naruto’s heritage at the end of their trip and Naruto loses control. Follow Naruto as he slowly comes to term with his actions and tries to fulfill the promises he made over his sensei’s dead body. Eventually ANBU!Naruto. NarutoxYugao ...
1. Chapter 1 Heritage

**Author's Note (A/N):**

First things first:

**Title:** The Rise of Konoha's Night Storm

**Summary:** Jiraiya reveals Naruto's heritage at the end of their trip and he loses control. Follow Naruto as he slowly comes to term with his actions and tries to fulfill the promises he made over his sensei's dead body. It will eventually be ANBU!Naruto. NarutoxYugao …

**Author:** BlackDragon-2009

**Rating:** M (16+)

**Language:** English

**Genre:** Adventure/Romance

**Character:** Naruto & Yugao (they are the main characters, even if Yugao will only appear in a later chapter)

**Pairing:** I don't want to spoil it for you, so I won't tell you all that I have planned out in this category, but I'll let you know that Naruto is a teenager and I hope that I'll be able to portray that as I have planned. If you've read the summary you will know that it's a NarutoxYugao story, but that won't be everything I promise you. But I don't think that I'll make it into a Harem story.

**Warning: **Violence, language, sexual contents, etc.

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Naruto.

* * *

This is my first fanfiction I wrote and English is not my native language, so don't expect it to be perfect, but I will try my best to make this into an interesting and good story. I have the plot planned out up to 15 chapters. Beyond that I haven't decided yet what I will put in, but I already have a good idea for about 20 chapters. Next thing I wanted to say is that I'll try to update as often as possible, but I have a lot of things I have to do at the moment. So please don't ask me when the next update will be all the time. It will be out when I have finished it and put it on the net. I'll try to update at least once a month, but it may be possible that I update slower if I have other work to do.

So now that I've got all that off my mind I'll let you know what to expect:

- The story will follow the canon story loosely. It will contain all the main arcs of Shippuuden, but there will be a lot of other ideas and arcs added to it and even the canon arcs will be different.

- Naruto will be stronger than in canon, but don't expect him to be super strong overnight. I won't make him godlike, but he will be strong. He will also become more of an OC the more the story continues

- Yugao and a few other minor character will also be mostly OCs, as they don't really appear in the canon long enough to make them canon-like.

- Also this will be a Naruto-centric story, so don't expect many different P.O.V.s. There will be some but most of the story will be about Naruto and his P.O.V.

- I don't really like Sakura & Sasuke, so don't expect them to have big roles. They will appear, but won't be as important as in the canon.

* * *

**Legend:**

"Naruto" - talking

'_Parents'_ - thinking

_Flashback_ – Flashbacks

"**Kit"** – Kyuubi / Summon talking

'_**Naruto'**_ - Kyuubi / Summon thinking

* * *

**Chapter 1: Heritage**

'_Parents'_ was the only thought on Naruto's mind at the moment. The day had started like any other day since Naruto left Konoha because of his training trip with Jiraiya training all day long. It was their last day of training before returning to Konoha the next day, having decided to go home a bit earlier than planned. It was getting dark when Jiraiya approached the tired Naruto who was sitting at the fire at the camp they had set up a few days earlier. The light of the fire was illuminating his face showing that he didn't really pay attention, going as far as having his blue eyes closed, to anything his sensei told him not even when Jiraiya said he had something important to tell him.

The legendary Sannin didn't bother with it and decided that Naruto would pay attention as soon as he heard the topic he wanted to tell him about. After all it wasn't everyday an orphan was told who his parents were after years of being even refused to get to know the names of them. So after seeing that Naruto wasn't paying attention to him after he told him that he had something important to tell him the Sannin decided to drop the bomb and began to talk. "Naruto, I have decided that it's time for you to know about your parents."

This is when we find the young, blond haired Shinobi sitting next to the fire blue eyes flashing open widening in the process. The words of his sensei shocked him shock that his blue eyes were showing clearly. Shock that Jiraiya expected as reaction to his words so he decided to remain silent until the blond teen overcame his shock.

A dream of Naruto that he never told anybody of, was to learn everything about his parents, it was a dream most orphan's shared. But every time Naruto tried to find out who his parents were he failed. When he was a child he asked the only person he really trusted and that was the old man. An old man who was known to everybody in Konohagakure as the Sandaime Hokage. Every time Naruto asked him he would get the same answer and after a few tries Naruto didn't bother to try to get it out of the Hokage anymore.

The answer was always the same, the Hokage said that his mother died during childbirth and that he didn't know who his father was every time. Naruto being the prankster that he was when he was a child tried to find out through other ways like breaking into the archive and after he was in there looking through his files not finding anything about his parents.

So he made something un-Naruto like and gave up. He gave up looking for his parents names hoping that he would find out about them one day.

Now he sat here in the camp next to the fire at the end of a long training trip looking at his sensei. A sensei that now after years being spent together decided to tell him about his parents knowing about them since he had met Naruto. It made Naruto a bit mad that Jiraiya never bothered to tell him but he couldn't stay mad at him for more than a second.

Naruto hoped that it wasn't all just a dream after all he often dreamed about this moment, so it was just like one of his dreams became true.

After Jiraiya saw that Naruto finally got over his shock and that he had had Naruto's full attention he continued. "I know that Sarutobi-sensei told you that your mother died during child birth and that is what happened. Your mother's name was Uzumaki Kushina. She was from the former Whirlpool country but she came to Konoha a few years before you were born. You should probably know that you act quite a bit like her and she was quite the beauty, too. Long red hair all the way down her back, a beautiful and kind face but she had quite a temper, too."

Naruto took everything his sensei said in like a sponge also noticing that look on Jiraiya's face. It was a far away look showing that his sensei was lost in memories for a few seconds. But when Jiraiya began to describe his mother the look changed to a look that resembled the look on his face when he writes those perverted books far too much for Naruto likes.

"I swear if you put my mother in one of your damn books you are a dead man." Naruto interrupted him with fire in his eyes that made Jiraiya believe that his student really meant what he said.

"I would never. Your father would have killed me if I would have put her in one of my books. But that's beside the point." Jiraiya answered waiting for a few seconds before he continued. "I knew you had it in you, you are my student after all." After he said this his sensei reached for a small scroll and unsealed the content of it showing his Icha Icha Paradise books. Jiraiya reached for one book and gave it to Naruto saying. "There you go. Now you can read my masterpieces of literature tell me when you finished and we can continue this conversation."

Naruto couldn't believe where the conversation about his parents headed and decided to change the direction right now throwing the book his sensei gave him hitting him right on the head. After being hit his sensei muttered something under his breath so that Naruto couldn't really understand it. The words he understood were 'youth' 'good literature' and a few other words like that.

After that the camp was silent for a few minutes the only sounds coming from the wind blowing through trees and nearby animals. After a few minutes the legendary Sannin decided to continue with the conversation about Naruto's parents. "Now how do I tell you about your father."

These few words once again got the full attention of the blond teen making him look at his sensei with a look that clearly said 'go on'.

"I know you asked yourself the question why the Yondaime choose you as the container for the Kyuubi a few times, didn't you?" Jiraiya began and seeing Naruto nod to answer the rhetorical question he continued. "You were the only child born on that day, and even if another one had been born, the Yondaime would not have dared ask for the other one. He wanted his own son to bare the burden and surpass him."

Hearing this several thoughts came to Naruto's mind both positive and negative. _'My father was a hero', 'He wanted me to surpass him', 'My father sealed the Kyuubi in me', 'My father must have hated me', 'Ero-Sennin knew all along!', 'He never told me!'_

Naruto didn't know what he should think. Did his father really hate him so much or did he love him? He could feel confusion and anger rising up in him preventing him from focusing on anything. He knew he needed some time alone to clear his mind.

"Naruto, never think that your father didn't love you" Jiraiya said trying to make it clear to the confused Naruto. "He loved you more than you will ever know."

Anger rising Naruto knew he had to get away. He was losing his control and it wouldn't take long until the Kyuubi used this as a chance to take control over his vessel. Even though Jiraiya hadn't said anything and even though he couldn't remember the tinniest bit of what had happened, Naruto was smart enough to figure out that it had been him losing control of the Kyuubi, that time when Jiraiya had been nearly killed and the landscape had been destroyed.

He also knew that the same would happen now, if he didn't get his anger under control, but it was already too late as red chakra started to purr out of his body. Eyes widening Naruto sprung to his feet and dashed away as fast as he could. He wouldn't let anybody get hurt even if he lost control.

Jiraiya's eyes widened recognizing what was happening as soon as he saw the red chakra appear. Thinking quickly he reached into his pocket and took one of his suppressor seals out knowing he had to act really fast. Running after Naruto a wave of terror washed over him followed by a shockwave so strong that he flew backwards when it connected with his body.

'_Too late'_ Jiraiya thought eyes widening when he felt pain in his chest. He couldn't move as good as he should have, he noticed in a split second. Yet it was still enough for him to look down at his chest. In his chest a huge wood splinter was sticking out, blood welling out of the wound. It hadn't hit his heart but it was too close for comfort and seeing how much blood he was losing Jiraiya knew that this could be the last night of his life if he didn't get proper treatment quickly.

Knowing that it could be the last thing in his life Jiraiya started to gather chakra, both his own and that of the nature. It was his last chance. With that in mind Jiraiya drew another line on each of his cheeks and started the process to summon the Ni Dai Sennin and with them enter the hermit mode.

* * *

Naruto felt good. He felt better than he ever remembered. He felt so powerful, strong enough to move mountains by himself or even beating Orochimaru around like it was nothing. But at the very same time he had a funny gut feeling he just couldn't place. While he finally felt that he reached his dream of becoming powerful, the gut feeling made him believe that something just wasn't right.

That's when it all fell into place. He remembered everything now and was sure that he actually had lost control. It was the Kyuubi's power that made him feel so powerful and he wasn't the one controlling it. He had to get to the Kyuubi and get the control of his body back and fast.

Moving one foot forward an unimaginable pain overcame him. It felt as if his whole body was burning and not only the skin like it would when he was set on fire, no even his insides felt like they were on fire. Ignoring the almost unbearable pain as best as he could, Naruto moved forward each step making his body feel even worse, as he made his way to his prisoner's cage. He knew where he had to go to reach the Kyuubi's prison; it was his mind after all.

As he stepped before the cage he could feel the source of the power clearly, for the first time since he woke up. A tiny bit of fear welled up in him, but he couldn't let it direct his actions. He had to get control of his body back, after all.

"Hey, fur ball!" Naruto shouted at the top of his voice and a second later two slitted red eye's were focused on him from behind the bars.

"**So you are here"** the Kyuubi said it's voice a near growl. "**Do you like it?"** the Kyuubi asked him, as its voice rose from the quite growl to the now booming voice. **"Do you enjoy being powerful once in your life? You could have even more power if you just released me."**

Not falling for the Kyuubi's play Naruto's determination rose up even higher, remembering all the people this demon had killed in Konoha when it had been free. "Give me back control over my body!" he yelled determined to get what he wanted and it showed in his voice. The Kyuubi growled in response but Naruto didn't react in the slightest knowing that he was safe from the demon.

"**You want control back?"** the Kyuubi mocked its human vessel. **"Why don't you come here and take it back yourself?"**

"Do you think I'm that dumb?" Naruto asked the demon fox knowing what the fox wanted to do once Naruto moved forward. That's when the Naruto that spoke suddenly vanished in a cloud of smoke and the real Naruto appeared in front of the Kyuubi hitting the fox on the snout as hard as he could. The Kyuubi didn't seem to be affected by the punch and growled dangerously, his claw racing towards Naruto who was still in the air and unable to block. Not being able to block the attack Naruto soon was trapped between to of the Kyuubi's long claws as the whole paw hit the ground pinning the human helpless to the ground.

The Kyuubi growled again, a ghost of a smile appearing on its face. **"Why don't I let you have your control back."** The Kyuubi said as it pushed the helpless Naruto even harder on the ground.

Naruto could hear the Kyuubi's voice but didn't understand a single word as the pressure on him increased, but it began to seem unimportant as the scene began to fade away into darkness.

* * *

Naruto opened his eyes wondering why the Kyuubi let him have control back when it could have killed him easily as the demon had trapped him helpless and at its mercy.

He could feel nothing but pain. It was the same pain he had felt in his mind only ten times stronger. He looked at his hand and saw that the whole skin had burns all over it. _'That's going to take a while to heal' _he thought bitterly.

Surveying the area around him Naruto finally saw that he was standing in a large crater. What had earlier been a forest full of life was now destroyed, scarred for years to come. And what was even worse, was that Naruto knew that he was the one responsible for it.

Seeing something move in the corner of his eyes Naruto turned his head to see what it was. Finally seeing what had caught his eyes a sense of dread and guilt washed over him. There only about 50 meter away from him lay the form of his sensei.

Naruto tried to scream for him but no sound escaped his mouth so he took a step forward only to collapse from the pain, his feet unable to hold his weight while moving. As he hit the ground laying flat on the face Naruto began to crawl towards his sensei's body. Coming nearer and nearer Naruto began to feel even worse because Jiraiya still hadn't moved. _'He can't be dead. No.'_ he thought.

Finally reaching him Naruto tried to feel for a pulse when he suddenly felt cold metal pressed against his throat. "No false move." A voice said from besides him. Turning his head as much as he could, which wasn't much, Naruto saw a small toad he hadn't met yet standing there holding a kunai to his throat. As Naruto was about to say something to the toad they both turned to Jiraiya who coughed catching their attention.

"Na…Na…ruto" Jiraiya stammered out, obviously in a lot of pain.

Naruto felt the steel vanish from his throat as he focused entirely on his sensei. "You're going to be all right, pervy-sage." Naruto tried to ease his sensei, but he didn't even convince himself as tears began to run down his cheeks.

The corner's of Jiraiya's mouth twitched a bit, obviously trying to smile but failing to do so. "D…don…t….be" Jiraiya began to stammer out but was interrupted by a cough. He was coughing up blood. "…m…ad…at…y…yo…your…fa…fath…ther." Naruto didn't know what to say or even what he should do as even more tears started to stream down his cheeks, the toad from earlier already forgotten. Jiraiya's eyes began to close slowly and finally closed as he stopped to breathe.

Suddenly Jiraiya's eyes sprang wide open, an expression of pure determination mixed in with a lot of pain on his face. _'He still has something to say, so he forced himself to stay alive.'_ The toad thought to himself as he was silently watching the whole scene.

"Gr…g…gr…ow" began Jiraiya, but was interrupted by a few coughs, blood flying out of his mouth. "…str…stro…ong…gh." He paused, his head turning as much as it still could to face Naruto, or where he guessed Naruto to be. He was searching for Naruto, his eyes failing him.

Naruto realized that he was searching for him, but couldn't see him anymore. "I'm here." he said quietly, his voice full of sadness.

Jiraiya's head turned a bit more, his hearing still good and was now nearly perfectly facing Naruto. "D…don…t…bl…" he started again, but was once again interrupted by a few coughs, even worse than the last few. "…a…me…yo…you…ur…s…s…se…sel…f."

Naruto couldn't hold it back anymore, more tears streaming down his face and dropping on Jiraiya's slowly dieing form, as he began to sob for the first time since he had promised to himself as a child that he would never again do so. Not caring for the promise anymore Naruto began to sob into Jiraiya's shoulder not caring if he got blood on him.

It was then that Jiraiya once again began to speak, his voice sounding even weaker than before. "M…ma…ake…m…me…me…p…pr…prou…d" he stammered out as the last bit of his strength began to leave him. "…Na…Na…ruto…" Jiraiya's head dropped to the ground, his body going limb as the final breath left the body of the legendary Toad sage, Sannin of Konohagakura and sensei to both the Yondaime Hokage and his only son.

Naruto who was still sobbing into Jiraiya's shoulder lost even the last amount of control he still had over his emotions as he realized that Jiraiya had died, as he sobbed and cried not caring for anything else in the world. Akatsuki could have come and picked him up and he wouldn't have noticed as nothing in the world seemed to be important anymore. He felt like he wanted to die and follow his sensei, but he didn't have the strength left in him to do anything else than sobbing, yet alone reach for a weapon and kill himself.

He didn't know how long he lay there sobbing into his dead sensei's chest, having lost the track of time as time seemed to have lost all meaning to him. He stayed there sobbing until unconscious began to reach for him but the blonde teen resisted. Finally managing to get some control back, Naruto slowly stopped sobbing, his face showing more determination than ever before, tears still sliding down his cheeks as he silently made a promise to himself.

'_I will Jiraiya-sensei.'_ He promised to himself. _'I will grow strong, stronger than all the others and I will make you proud of me, no matter what.'_ Naruto closed his eyes vowing that he would do that no matter what, before he opened his eyes again adding something else to the promise. _'Never again will I lose control like that. Never again will the Kyuubi control my actions.'_

Repeating this vow again and again in his mind unconscious finally claimed him and his head fell down on his sensei's shoulder, as they both lay there on the ground next to each other. One unconscious, the other dead.

From a small distance Fukasaku had watched the whole scene, his tears having already dried, as he watched Jiraiya's student still sobbing uncontrollable. _'Jiraiya-chan.'_ the toad elder thought sadly. Memories of Jiraiya streaming into his mind, Fukasaku knew what he had to do and as Naruto finally fell into unconscious the old toad went over to the now unmoving bodies and vanished with a quiet 'pop' taking the two bodies with him, leaving the destroyed landscape behind, that had once belonged to a beautiful forest.

* * *

**A/N:** That's it. That's the first chapter.

I know I'm cruel killing Jiraiya off like that.

Kishi used Jiraiya's death to finally make Naruto more mature and the Naruto in my story will be a lot more mature, too, than he's is in the canon, but that won't be everything. As I first had the idea of this story I didn't kill Jiraiya and just had Naruto running away by himself, but for what I wanted to later on in the story that was just not possible. So I had to think of something else and finally came to the conclusion to kill the j-man off, even though he is one of my favorite characters.

So now Naruto was taken by Fukasaku to the toad mountain and I think most of you will be able to guess what he will do there, but I won't say anything more about it.

I hope the story was readable for all of you as like I said at the beginning this is my first story and it's not written in my native language. Reviews are much appreciated so feel free to leave one.


	2. Chapter 2 Second Death

**Author's Note (A/N):**

Well, here is chapter 2. Check my A/N at the bottom for all the important things I have to say.

**Disclaimer**:I don't own Naruto.

**Legend:**

"Naruto" - talking

'_Parents'_ - thinking

_Flashback_ – Flashbacks

"**Kit"** – Kyuubi / Summon talking

'_**Naruto'**_ - Kyuubi / Summon thinking

* * *

**Chapter 2: Second Death**

After having run after the small summoned dog for a while now Team Gai finally arrived at their destination. They stood on a quite stream narrowed by the huge walls of rock on both sides. All their heads were turned towards one of these flanks of the canyon, a huge rock boulder blocking the supposed entrance to the cave they had to go if you trusted their guide. "Gaara is inside these rocks" Pakkun, the small, summoned nin-dog, said from his position on top of Lee's shoulder.

Hearing this Neji activated his Byakugan to look inside the cave and find out what was happening inside. "How does it look, Neji?" the female of the team, Tenten, asked.

"Wh…What is that?" Neji asked more to himself then anything else, not understanding what his eyes were showing him.

"Neji, what's happening inside the cave?" Lee inquired curios of the situation and a bit perplexed by his normally so stoic teammates reaction.

"Words can't explain…" Neji answered. How could he describe the scene he was seeing with his all seeing eyes, when he himself couldn't really understand what he was seeing?

Hearing this Gai had enough and rushed forward, covering the few meters in an instant and struck, intending to destroy the huge boulder that was blocking the entrance with one hit with his fist. But his fist was stopped before it reached the stone of the boulder by an invisible shield. "A barrier" Gai mumbled under his breath.

"What should we do?" his green clad student Lee asked, as Gai stepped back from the barrier. Even if lee had become a chuunin most chakra based arts where still beyond him, as he couldn't study them because of his condition.

"First we have to break the barrier, Lee!" Gai answered his favorite student with much enthusiasm. Even as a jounin Gai didn't know much about the sealing arts on which the barrier obviously was based. He hoped that Kakashi would get here soon seeing as his rival was one of the most knowledgeable jounins in the village on this topic.

Tenten being the most knowledgeable in the art of sealing with her weapon sealing, asked after her sensei had answered Lee's question. "How do we do that?"

A second later Kakashi landed on the water only meters away causing a few small ripples on the quite surface, followed by Sakura and Chiyo and answered the question, not even bothering to greet the other team. "It's a five seal barrier." He said simply as it was an obvious fact, his face not showing that he clearly knew, that his answer wouldn't help most of them anyway as he didn't go into any detail and that most of them had absolutely no knowledge about the art of sealing.

Turning away from the protected entrance and towards the newcomers Gai greeted his eternal-rival. "You're late Kakashi."

"Eh, well, we ran into a bit of trouble on the way." Kakashi reasoned lamely, not having to use one of his normal excuses, but was stopped from elaborating further as Lee interrupted him.

"Sakura-san!" Lee greeted with a lot of enthusiasm.

Sakura turned towards Team Gai and introduced Chiyo, as advisor from Sunagakure, to them before any of them could ask a question about their companion.

Seeing that they still had a mission and not just any mission, but the mission to rescue the Kazekage, the leader of their allied village Sunagakure, to accomplish Gai captured everybody's attention. "Right!" he said in his usual loud voice. "Let's go for it, Kakashi."

With a quick nod and a quick 'thank you' Kakashi dismissed his summon and not a second later Pakkun vanished with a 'pop' leaving nothing but a small cloud of smoke behind. Turning towards Kakashi who had the most knowledge about seals from all of them Gai moved everybody's focus back on the mission as he questioned Kakashi about the barrier. "First off this barrier, eh, Kakashi? How do we take it out?"

Taking a quick look at the paper slip on the boulder that blocked the entrance of the cave Kakashi replied. "This particular 'five seal barrier' is created by tokens with 'kin' written on them in five places in the vicinity. To remove the barrier all of them must be detached."

"So where are the other four?" Tenten asked curiously.

"Neji-kun" Kakashi said simply looking at the youngest jounin amongst them and giving him a short nod.

"Understood" Neji answered and activated his doujutsu searching the whole area with his all-seeing Byakugan. Having found all of the token's locations, Neji informed the others of their exact locations. Gai took five radios out of his bag as a means of communication and gave each member of his team one and Kakashi took the last. After a quick check of the functionality of the radios Team Gai took off to detach the four tokens in the surrounding area, having Neji to direct them all over the radios.

It didn't take them long to reach their destinations and having received an affirmation that everybody was in position a few moments later, Gai gave them all the order to remove the tokens. "Right, everyone! Remove the tokens." he ordered.

Having received Gai's command Kakashi peeled the paper slip that was placed on the boulder off and with a short nod he commanded Sakura to destroy it. "Sakura." He said to her as he jumped to the side. Hearing Kakashi saying her name and nod Sakura rushed forward and struck the boulder, her fist hitting the huge stone shattering it into a million pieces with her inhuman strength.

Waiting for a second to let the dust clear, Kakashi then gave the hand sign to infiltrate the cave. Landing in the rather dark cave Kakashi waited for a millisecond until his eyes were accustomed to the new light conditions before he took everything in analyzing the situation they found themselves in. They were in a large almost circular cave he realized in a split-second before he focused on the person's he saw. _'Is it too late?'_ he thought as he saw one of the two Akatsuki members sitting on the Kazekage's stiff body. Kakashi recognized the other Akatsuki as a puppet in an instant, meaning that it had to be Sasori of the desert, former puppet master of Sunagakure. He didn't recognize the other member, but seeing the bird made of clay behind him, Kakashi realized that it was the one who took the Kazakage if one trusted the reports he had read about the attack in their time in Suna.

"They didn't bring the Jinchuriki." Deidera, the blond haired Akatsuki said. "How disappointing." He added after a short pause. He had wanted to play a little more and Gaara had been quite a challenge after all, so fighting another Jinchuriki should have been a challenge, too, and with that a good end to the whole mission.

"Wrong." A new voice from the now open entrance of the cave cut in. _'The voice sounds familiar.'_ Kakashi thought as he spun around fearing the worst being caught in between the Akatsuki even if the voice sounded familiar.

Facing the new arrival Sakura couldn't believe her eyes. There stood her former teammate who had been away for the last two and a half years. "Naruto." She said not really believing the picture her own eyes were showing her. _'Naruto has grown quite a bit; he must be taller than me._' She thought eyeing him up and down and he did wear a new outfit, though it was still orange it was way better than his old jumpsuit as it had large black parts and so way better suited for a ninja, than his former bright orange outfit.

"Sakura-chan" Naruto greeted looking her once over and realized that she had grown into quite a beautiful woman (A/N: leaves to puke [didn't really want to write this, but had to if I wanted it to be realistic]), before he moved on to the others. "Kakashi-sensei." He greeted his old sensei giving him a short nod to which his sensei responded with a nod of his own, knowing that now wasn't the time for greetings or explanations.

'_Why does everything have to happen to Gaara?_' Naruto thought as he saw Gaara's body lying limp on the ground, the blond Akatsuki member sitting on top of it. His anger began to rise as he remembered Gaara's lonely past filled with hatred and pain and now he was dead, having died all alone in a dark cave. _'I've to stay calm'_ Naruto thought remembering what happened the last time he had lost control because of his anger. _'Ero-Sennin.' _He thought sadly as he remembered the incident from about a month ago. During his time with the toads they had tried everything they could, but Naruto couldn't help it, he still felt guilt about it.

Stepping besides Kakashi Naruto regained all of his control as he suppressed all his anger, sadness and guilt and waited for the Akatsuki's first move, much to the surprise of his old teammates. Kakashi had thought that Naruto would have rushed forward by now, seeing one of his friends laying there on the ground, most likely dead.

On the other side of the cave the conversation between the two Akatsuki members had turned to which art was better, after they both had sparred Naruto one glance when he had spoken up, revealing his location to the presence both of them had already felt and conforming his status as Jinchuriki. But their conversation didn't stay long on their usual topic and changed to them arguing which of them would get to fight the Jinchuriki, as they both wanted to fight him on their own.

"Deidera you little shit… are you trying to piss me off?" came the deep voice of the unusual looking Akatsuki standing to the right side of his partner, from the Konoha ninja's point of view.

"I was right when I said it'd probably make you angry, mm?" the blond haired Akatsuki, now identified as Deidera, said.

Naruto tried to stay calm with all his might trying to ignore that they were talking about him. He wanted to get some action soon, which would make it a whole lot of easier for him to keep his calm, working his anger out of him. Fighting always seemed to calm his temper.

"My fine art is explosions." Deidera said slowly standing up from Gaara's lifeless body as the clay bird besides him stretched its wings and took Gaara's corpse in its mouth. _'It seems like they, or at least him, are readying themselves for departure.' _Naruto still trying to stay calm thought as he tried to analyze the situation they were in. "Completely different to your little puppet show!" the blond haired Akatsuki member's voice cut Naruto's analyzing thoughts short.

Angered by his partner's words Sasori's tail lashed out at him, as he the great puppeteer Sasori wasn't one to take insults to his art lightly, aiming to cut his partner in two with the attack. Deidera dodged the attack, which wasn't meant seriously, by simply jumping up landing on the clay bird which had taken flight the same second Deidera had jumped.

"See you master." Deidera said to his partner as the bird began to fly towards the exit of the cave and flew out of said dark cave not much later.

Seeing the clay bird fly out of the cave taking Gaara's lifeless body with it, Naruto quickly took after it rushing outside stopping short to survey the situation and to wait for help, as he was sure that Kakashi would come after him or at least send one of the other after him. He realized that he had unintentionally fulfilled the Akatsuki's anticipation of his actions in taking after him. Deidera had hoped to get the chance to fight against another Jinchuriki, preferably in an one-on-one battle and Naruto did fulfill just that wish.

Kakashi for his part rushed after Naruto only giving Sakura and Chiyo a last command before he, too, was out of the cave. Stopping besides Naruto Kakashi contacted Team Gai over his radio. "Gai, can you hear me? Come back quickly, you're needed!"

"Can't really do that." Gai's voice came over the radio. "We all fell into the enemy's jutsu. It'll take a bit longer." Gai's voice sounded grave so Kakashi didn't even want to know what it was that they were facing seeing that his team had after all been delayed by an Itachi-clone on their way to the cave. Receiving the negative answer Kakashi focused entirely on the bird flying above them. _'I can't afford to hold back here_.' He thought as he uncovered his single Sharingan eye.

The bird held its position, enough distance to the Konoha shinobi to be able to dodge all kinds of attacks without much effort at all. "Sharingan Kakashi." Deidera addressed the jounin ignoring Naruto who stood besides his sensei also facing the Akatsuki on the bird. "Are you sure it's me you wanna fight? I dunno if I should be saying it, but master Sasori is stronger than I am."

'_He's trying to get Kakashi-sensei to leave, so that he can fight me one-on-one.'_ Naruto realized but also knew that Kakashi would stay as his sensei would never leave Naruto to face an Akatsuki by himself without knowing how much his student had actually improved and if he was ready to fight against an opponent at such a high level.

Tired of staring the blond Akatsuki down Naruto launched himself forward trying to hit his opponent with a simple punch. The attack however was easily dodged when the clay bird flew a bit higher. Naruto quickly created a kage bunshin which appeared in his way and used it as a stepping stone and launched himself from it gaining the needed height. Surprised by the movement Deidera barely managed to dodge the punch, the bird going into a steep fall for a few milliseconds. Not being able to stop all his momentum while still in the air Naruto hit the flank of the valley with a crash.

Deidera who saw his chance to win the fight simply sent a small clay bird flying from his hand, which took flight towards the orange-clad teen only to be surprised when the Naruto vanished in a cloud of smoke. Reacting in time Deidera quickly directed the small bird towards his other opponent who intercepted it with a single well thrown shuriken not thinking that the shuriken would be sent back at him when the bird actually exploded. So he could do nothing but deflect the shuriken with a kunai as it raced towards him after the bird had exploded.

Suddenly Naruto appeared behind the Akatsuki member kunai at his opponent's throat surprising both Kakashi and Deidera, who both didn't see this coming yet both showing absolutely none of their surprise on their face. "There is no way I'm letting you take Gaara's body." Naruto said from behind Deidera his voice barely above a whisper.

"You are quite the odd Jinchuriki." Deidera said his voice laced with fake confusion trying to buy some time to get out of the situation he found himself in. "I heard that Jinchuriki generally hate people because of their own bad moods. But this Gaara is unusual, too."

"So far there haven't been any Jinchuriki who care about others. Besides him …" the blond Akatsuki said gesturing towards the head of the clay bird's head, in which Gaara's corpse was in, with his hand. "…two Jinchuriki, up until now, were defeated by my peers. Their friends and those of their villages, it seems, not a single one came to save them. Instead, it appeared that they were more on our side … kukuku."

'_Nobody should have to endure pain and loneliness all their life only to die alone, abandoned by their own friends and comrades.'_ Naruto thought and pulled his hand back in his anger, slicing the Akatsuki's throat only to be surprised when instead of blood pouring out the whole body turned into clay.

Alarmed Naruto tried to sense where his enemy was at, failing to find any presence of him anywhere besides the clay bird which had been made by him. Cursing inwardly, he caught a movement below him as a hand broke through the surface of the clay he was standing on and leaped away dodging an attack from Deidera, who broke through the clay and came out of the inner of his bird, by mere inches. Naruto landed besides Kakashi, both totally focused on their obviously cunning enemy.

„Both pitiful and detested, you couldn't ignore each other, mm?" Deidera asked sarcastically. "Because Gaara's 'Ichibi' was extracted, he died. You will share the same fate shortly. Got it?"

Getting angrier with each passing second it got harder and harder to suppress the Kyuubi's chakra, which wanted to get out, but he didn't want to use it ever again after what had happened the last time he had done so. "I will kill you all." Naruto stated as he began to draw the nature's chakra, which was all around him, towards him, eyes turning yellow and were surrounded by red markings, the sign of a true sage.

Perplexed by the change of the Jinchuriki's appearance, totally different then what he expected and what has been reported about his change in appearance while using his demon's chakra, Deidera couldn't dodge the incoming attack and was hit fully on the jaw and sent flying upwards. Only to be met with a kick in the back sending him even higher, only to be yet again met with an attack as a fist crashed into his face sending him down and into the flank of the valley.

Kakashi for his part could only stare in wonder at his student's attack barely able to follow it, not having been prepared for such speed. He saw as Deidera crashed into the hard rock, large stones breaking away from the flank from the force of the impact and dropped into the normally quite stream below them. _'He's not using the Kyuubi's chakra'_ Kakashi thought as he wondered what and how Jiraiya had taught his student in two and a half years. He hadn't seen Naruto's eyes change and he couldn't feel the Kyuubi at all so he assumed that it was all Naruto's normal speed and strength_. 'You've grown a lot, Naruto.'_

Naruto could already feel the natural energy spilling away as he moved so he tried to end the fight as fast as possible and launched a handful of kunai, all prepared with an explosive note attacked to them, towards the cloud of dust and debris caused by the impact. 'Fuck!' Naruto nearly screamed inside his mind as he saw the clay bird, which was still able to fly even if parts of it were missing, vanish in said cloud of dust. The kunai, too, vanished in the cloud not a second later, but the clay bird was already out of the cloud with Deidera on its back when the ground began to shake from the force of the explosions.

Dropping to the ground minimizing the force as much as possible Naruto sped after the Akatsuki, whose bird has begun to fly away, not caring if Kakashi was actually following or not. "Wait, Naruto! Don't go too far away from me." Kakashi shouted to his student who slowed his pace down by a bit, even though Kakashi could have easily caught up to his student if he had picked up the pace. _'I'll have to save as much chakra as possible, if I want to win this_ fight' he thought as he caught up to his student.

They were moving out of the reach of the radios signal Kakashi realized as they followed the Akatsuki member. 'I'll have to end this as fast as possible.' He thought thinking about the possibilities this situation led to. The Akatsuki could lead them into a trap or an ambush, if they followed him long enough.

"Naruto, I have a plan to take him down, just give me some time." Kakashi said to his young student as he began to gather the necessary chakra for his attack. Naruto could feel his sensei's chakra beginning to gather especially in his sensei's single Sharingan eye. "I'm ready now. Let's go Naruto." Kakashi said after a few seconds and Naruto saw his sensei's eye turning into a different form, a form of the Sharingan he had never seen or even heard of.

"Mangekyou Sharingan." Kakashi said focusing his technique on the Akatsuki member in the air attempting to force his head or neck into another dimension. Quickly reaching his limit with the chakra taxing technique, Kakashi had to settle on cutting Deidera's arm of as he hadn't been able to focus his technique good enough on the moving Akatsuki.

Naruto looked in awe at the sight of Kakashi's new technique and he quickly realized two things. The first was that it didn't have the desired effect and second that it took a lot out of his sensei. Realizing this Naruto knew that he should come up with a plan to help his sensei as soon as possible. Coming up with a plan Naruto waited for Kakashi's next try to start his plan.

Just as Kakashi began to attack a second time with his Sharingan technique, Naruto saw his chance and used the natural chakra he had been gathering while waiting to jump as high as he could. Reaching the bird's height Naruto quickly formed a Rasengan in his hand intending to end the fight with it. Seeing the attack both older shinobi reacted. Kakashi deactivated his technique and Deidera leaping away from his position on the clay bird in order to dodge the attack directed at him.

Naruto having thought of that possibility used the Rasengan to cut through the clay bird, splitting it in two parts. A kage bunshin already formed under him which Naruto used as a stepping stone to get to the Akatsuki member who was still in the air and unable to dodge. Meanwhile another two clones pooped into life and caught the head of the bird and brought it safely to the ground. With solid ground under their feet's the clones began to use their hands to dig their friend out of the clay.

Naruto used all his momentum to get more power behind his roundhouse kick and sent Deidera who blocked the kick with his arm speeding downwards. Naruto went after his opponent intending to end the battle as he brought his knee in the Akatsuki's gut shortly before they reached the ground, causing Deidera to spit out blood from the force of the attack just before they hit the ground. Being in the position to end the fight once and for all Naruto brought his right hand down on the man's face, Rasengan forming on the way and drilled into the blonde's face only to have him turn into clay. Growling out of anger Naruto leaped back and landed besides his panting sensei. "Kakashi-sensei, are you okay?" he asked concerned.

"Yeah, one way or another …" Kakashi answered cryptically already feeling the first signs of chakra exhaustion, but also knew that he needed to push on.

Deidera was in a bad situation. He only had one arm left and had to face off against two enemies. His one opponent, none other than Sharingan Kakashi, was still a serious threat even if he was already showing signs of exhaustion. The other was no other than the Kyuubi Jinchuriki, who was a lot stronger than he had anticipated. So he knew that his chance to win was pretty low, seeing that they had reinforcements who would most likely arrive soon. _'Thinking of the devil'_ Deidera thought as two ninja's landed next to his two opponents.

"Finally caught up" Sakura exclaimed after Chiyo and she landed besides Kakashi and Naruto.

"You are still having trouble here, it seems." The old lady from Sunagakure said with a weak voice, she was obviously already exhausted or at least pretty tired Naruto realized.

"Sakura-chan, the two of you did it." Naruto said happily knowing that his team mate was okay for now.

"Yes." Chiyo answered for Sakura trying to cut the catch up time short. "More importantly, what of Gaara?"

Naruto looked down; eyes cast on the ground and nodded his head once in the direction of his clones, which had finished digging Gaara's body out. Chiyo saw his movement and turned to the area he had nodded to and saw his clones with an unmoving Gaara and understood what it meant in a split second.

Deidera saw his chance to get away without being noticed and began to back away slowly, but was soon intercepted by Team Gai appearing in front of him. Cursing his bad luck Deidera knew that now he didn't have any other chance but to use it. So he leaped away going into the direction of the remains of the clay bird he had flown on earlier.

Evading all the attacks from Team Gai he quickly arrived at the clay remains and took a bite. "Take a look at my ultimate work of art. Art is a bang!" he yelled after swallowing the clay, his body already beginning to blow up.

Neji, his Byakugan activated, saw Deidera gathering all his chakra in one point. "Everyone hurry, get away from here!" he shouted as he understood what the Akatsuki member was doing. Hearing their team mate's shout Team Gai took off, trying to get away as far as possible.

Not a second later Deidera shouted "Katsu!!" and exploded in a huge ball of fire.

Cursing in his mind Naruto tried to come up with a quick escape plan and began to gather the natural chakra all around him, cursing that he still hadn't completed the sage mode; his brain tried to come up with a plan, but failed to do so. Seeing no other possibility to escape the explosion Kakashi activated his Mangekyou Sharingan once again sending the explosion into another dimension. Letting out the breath he hadn't known he was holding, Naruto relaxed and let the natural energy once again dissipate and return towards his surroundings. Kakashi collapsed from the strain and was glad when Naruto's clone landed with Gaara's corpse interrupting Sakura as she asked him about the technique he just used.

Seeing Gaara's body Sakura began to check him shaking her head after she finished with her examination, proving what they had all already known. Naruto couldn't help himself as he started to walk away from them, tears spilling out of his eyes. "Why… was Gaara … always Gaara." Naruto said not making any sense to those who heard him. "To die like this …"

He took another step and leaned against a tree trunk, tears dropping down on the ground beneath him. "First you… and now Gaara" Naruto whispered to himself, so low that nobody could hear him. _'Why? Why did they all have to die? Leaving him alone. Why did it happen to them? I would have gladly died for them._' He spoke in his mind as sadness began to overwhelm him, both the sadness from Gaara's death and the sadness, which he had locked away deep inside his mind, from his sensei's death.

An uncomfortable feeling overcame him as he stared at the tree trunk not really seeing anything at all as his mind was just returning to normalness. Something wasn't right he realized still feeling uncomfortable. He tried to reach out extending his senses as he turned one with the nature. Yes he could feel it, there was a disturbance in the nature's chakra, but he couldn't quite make something out of it, in his state of mind. Coming to a conclusion he went through some hand signs, much to the surprise of his fellow nins.

"Kuchiyouse no jutsu" he said as he slammed his hand on the ground, a bit of his blood still on it from the fight earlier.

"Ah. Naruto-chan, what can I do for you?" a new voice asked out of the cloud of smoke that had yet to clear. The smoke began to clear revealing and obviously quite old and small toad.

"I'm not sure yet" Naruto said as he nodded in the direction in which he had felt the disturbance in the natural energy.

"You've improved quite a bit if you were able to feel that" the toad elder, known as Fukasaku, said as the cloud of smoke finally dispersed completely. "It's a human being beneath the surface." Fukasaku stated calmly putting anybody on edge when they heard his words.

'So it was only a trick to try and get away' Naruto thought as he saw Deidera breaking through the surface and out of the ground knowing that he had been discovered having listened in on their conversation. Cursing his luck once more Deidera looked at his opponents one last time before he vanished in a cloud of smoke.

'Sunshin no jutsu' Naruto thought as he debated in his mind about what he should do. Kakashi was at his limit, Sakura and Chiyo looked quite exhausted as well and the same could be said about Team Gai. Seeing that it would be up to him to follow the enemy, Naruto came to the conclusion that it would be better for all of them to let him get away, this time. Looking back to his team mate's he saw that they had come to the same conclusion.

He saw the old lady from Sunagakure beginning a jutsu, probably a medical jutsu if his knowledge and the green glow of her hands were any indication, on Gaara. While it looked like a medical jutsu to Naruto he knew that it was impossible to bring back the dead, so he looked on in confusion. Next to him Fukasaku looked on quite interested in the proceedings as well, probably also wondering what the old woman was trying to do.

"Damn, not enough chakra" Naruto heard her say. Finally understanding that she was actually trying to bring Gaara back to life Naruto decided to help her. He could feel it with the help of his awareness of the nature, that she was using her own life force to bring him back, sacrificing herself so that Gaara may live again. "Please use my chakra" he said to her waiting for her response.

"Put your hands on top of mine" she said after a few seconds, in which the green glow lessened by a lot. Naruto did as she had instructed and began to focus chakra in his hands laying on top of hers, allowing Chiyo easier access to it.

"Why?" Naruto asked her quietly. "Why are you willing to give your life for his?"

"In the past everything I did was mistaken, but at the very end it seems I am finally able to do the right thing." The old woman said exhaustion clearly showing in her voice. Naruto didn't know what exactly she meant but he hadn't thought she would answer his question directly. "Sand and Konoha, their futures are differing from our past" Chiyo said before she turned away from Naruto and towards Sakura saying a few words to his pink haired team mate.

Naruto closed his eyes paying Chiyo the respect he thought she deserved as she died giving her own life to revive Gaara. Opening his eyes a few moments later having spoken his prayers for the old woman in his mind, he saw Gaara beginning to sit up. "Naruto" the surprised and confused Gaara asked. The last thing he could remember was fighting the Akatsuki member and then there was darkness, only broken through by some pictures and dreams.

Deciding that it's time to leave Fukasaku hopped on Naruto's shoulder. "It's time to leave, Naruto-chan" the toad elder said to the surprise of everyone present, who had all thought that Naruto would return to Konoha with them. "If we come back any later, Shima will get upset, because we will miss dinner."

"If you're sure" Naruto said sadly. He knew that he needed to return to Mt. Myoboku, but a part of him really wanted to stay with his friends catching up with them and just spending time with them.

"Well, by guys" Naruto waved half heartedly to his friends as Fukasaku brought his two small hands together, readying the reverse summoning.

"Wait, Naruto!" Sakura yelled, having been too surprised by the old toad's words before to say something. "When will we see you again?" She didn't want him to leave again after just seeing him for the first time after their years spent training individually, each trained by one of the Sannin.

"Sooner than you might think" Fukasaku answered her question cryptically just before both of them vanished in a cloud of smoke, as if they were two kage bunshin dispelling themselves, as they returned to the mountain of the toad to finish Naruto's training.

"Wha…?" Sakura asked confused about what just happened, never having seen anything like that before. _'Was it just a clone?' _she asked herself as she tried to figure out what happened.

"That was a reverse summoning" Gai told the confused teens and the exhausted Kakashi nodded besides him as all the teens looked confused from what they just saw, even the Kazekage himself. They all remained where they were, all staring at the spot Naruto had just been standing on when suddenly a lot of Suna shinobi appeared all around them forming a huge crowd around them.

* * *

In the middle of a small room inside a house on Mt. Myoboku Naruto and Fukasaku appeared, just as another older, female toad was setting the dishes on a small table obviously in the finishing state of cooking dinner. Fukasaku hopped of Naruto's shoulder and greeted his wife, while Naruto walked over to the small table and settled down sitting down on the ground.

'_I'm growing stronger, Jiraiya-sensei'_ he thought as he sat there while Shima brought dinner in on a plate setting it down on the small table. _'I will make you proud.'_

_

* * *

  
_

**A/N**: That's it.

Well first thing first: I'm not really happy with this chapter. I've even thought of not putting it in the story, but as I wanted to stay near the canon plot (at least for a bit) I had to put it in. I've tried to show some improvements in Naruto, but not exactly a huge growth in strength, etc. As you've noticed while reading the chapter Naruto trained with the toads at his time there, but hasn't mastered sage mode. (More about this will appear in later chapters) Other changes include that he is able to use Rasengan one handed and that he thinks before acting and that he didn't use the Kyuubi's chakra.

Next thing I've wanted to say is that I know I said that there wouldn't be many scenes that weren't about Naruto, as he is the main character, but I had to write the whole introduction to the arc. I could have just started it with Naruto appearing, but I think for a good story (which I aim to achieve) the writer has to write a bit about the whole background situation, too. If not it would look more like a collection of scenes out of the life of him, rather than a story about it.

And now for those of you that actually read these Author notes, I ask you to send me some ideas for the reunion between Naruto and Sasuke (manga chapter 306 – 311). I'm currently thinking of how to write this scene as it is the first scene I haven't planned out yet. While I have a few ideas about this scene, I'm lacking a really good one. So if you have a good idea you want to see in this fanfic send it to me and I'll see if I put it in or not. For those who wonder the scene will only appear in chapter 7 or 8. Many thanks to all who actually send me their ides.

And last but not least I wanted to thank all my readers for their interest in my story. It has already reached more hits than I would have dreamt of it reaching in one week and a lot of you put it on their story alert or favorite list. Thank you all for your interest, I appreciate it.

* * *

As a small thank you, I'll give you a small preview of what will happen in the next chapter:

Naruto returns to Konoha. Yugao will have her first appearance and they will meet each other.

For any more detail you have to wait until the actual chapter is out, so I wish you all a happy guessing.


	3. Chapter 3 Emotions

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Naruto.

* * *

**Legend: **

"Naruto" - talking

'_Parents'_ - thinking

_Flashback_ – Flashbacks

"**Kit"** – Kyuubi talking

'_**Naruto'**_ - Kyuubi thinking

* * *

**Chapter**** 3: Emotions**

It had been three days since he had said good-bye to his friends after rescuing Gaara. _'Three days'_ Naruto thought as he stepped out of the tree line and into the open. _'That means they won't be here until tomorrow, if they stayed the night in Suna.'_

He had done what he had needed to do, completing the training with the toad elder as good as possible, which wasn't that much of an improvement since his fight with the Akatsuki three days ago. And like many other things in his life it was because of the Kyuubi Kitsune sealed inside of him. The demon sealed inside him didn't allow Fukasaku to merge with him to complete the sage mode, so he couldn't really use it in a fight. A few seconds was the maximum and that only after several moments of not moving an inch to gather the natural energy. Yet, he had owned it to Jiraiya to finish the training with the toads, even if he wanted to return to Konoha with his friends. _'Tsunade-baa-chan probably already knows that I was there'_ he thought. He knew that the talk with Tsunade he was about to have in a while would be anything but easy.

Taking another few steps forward he could finally look at Konoha again. _'It doesn't look like it changed much' _he thought as he took in the sight of the village he loved. Yes, it looked nearly like he had it in his memories. Taking another step forward he stopped and sat down on the ground overlooking the village from his favourite spot, taking every tiny little detail in. He was sitting on top of the Yondaime's head on the Hokage Monument, the spot were he had liked to sit as a child to think about something or planning a new prank.

'_I guess now I know, why I always liked this spot'_ he thought as a few memories resurfaced. He had sat exactly on the same spot a few years ago wondering why most of the people hated him. _'Now I understand it'_ Naruto thought as his thoughts returned to the present.

'_You sacrificed me in order to save the village you loved, and I now love, and yet at the same time you didn't really sacrifice me at all. I could have turned out a lot different'_ he thought thinking of how Gaara had been once due to his demon's influence on his mind. "I forgive you, dad" Naruto whispered his voice so low; it nearly didn't even reach his own ears. '_I just wish, that I had the chance to get to know you and mom'_ he thought sadly as he remembered all he heard about his parents in his last conversation with Jiraiya.

Snapping out of his thoughts Naruto stood up surveying the whole village once again and realized that they added Tsunade's face to the monument right next to his father's face. Taking one look Naruto leaped forward and off the monument his route in the direction of the Hokage tower.

Being nearly there he decided he would have a bit fun first, before the whole conversation turned all serious and sad, and went straight to the window of the office, intending to enter like Jiraiya had done all the time. Leaping towards the open window Naruto saw a silhouette of a person standing in front of the desk. He debated in his mind whether he should enter just like that or wait until Tsunade was alone in her office and came to a conclusion within a split-second. '_It's not like I care about that' _he thought with a grin on his face as he leaped on the window-sill and quickly sat down on it, alerting the occupants of the room to his presence, one of them already vanishing, hiding him- or herself.

'_ANBU'_ Naruto thought as he realized that he couldn't sense the presence of said person one bit. Well at least he couldn't sense it without activating the sage mode, which was out of the question for the current situation.

"Ohayo, Tsunade-baa-chan!" Naruto greeted as he leaped off the window-sill and into the middle of the room, only to be met with a fist to the face, sending him backwards into the wall.

"What was that for?" Naruto asked in his loudmouth manner as he stumbled back to his feet as Tsunade sat back down in her chair.

"That was for going on a mission without permission and for becoming like Jiraiya" Tsunade said, her tone indicating that she obviously hadn't liked the fact that he had gone against the Akatsuki without her permission, even if he had grown much stronger from what was written in the short report she had gotten in the morning.

Not liking the silence that settled between them, Naruto decided to break it. "What I don't even get a welcome home or something like that?" he said pouting.

"Welcome home, brat" Tsunade said chuckling at his antics, her anger already beginning to fade into nothingness.

Looking around the room quickly and trying to sense her old team mate, but failing to find him Tsunade turned back to Naruto. "So where is my old team mate?" she asked. "Don't tell me that idiot is already off, peeking again?" she continued with her question, sounding a bit, well more like a lot, annoyed.

Naruto for his part didn't respond, his eyes lowering their glance to the ground, as he thought how it would be best to say it, memories of that fateful day already resurfacing in his mind. Having decided the best course of action Naruto spun around facing the wall. "Would you be so kind and leave the room for this conversation, ANBU-san?" he asked seemingly into the empty room.

Before the wall an ANBU silently rose out of the ground, obviously a woman if the long purple hair and the way she held herself were any indication, Naruto realized. The female ANBU wore the standard ANBU uniform, black pants, white armor, arm protection, ninjato strapped on her back and face hidden by a porcelain ANBU mask. "Tsunade-sama?" the female asked quickly overcoming her shock, which had of course been hidden from the world by her mask, of being discovered by a Genin.

Tsunade hid her shock really quick and quite well, even without the use of a mask, as expected of one of the legendary Sannin. "It's okay, you are dismissed" she said and received a nod from the ANBU in return before said female ANBU vanished in a swirl of leafs.

Even after the ANBU left Naruto stayed quiet eyes cast to the ground again, sadness written all over his face, which Tsunade picked up pretty soon and guessed what it meant. "Don't tell me that …" she began but couldn't finish the sentence as she was overwhelmed by her emotions, even with all her experience in the life and death of the shinobi life. Collecting herself after a second she continued.

"He is dead, isn't he?" she asked even though she could already tell the answer by looking at Naruto's face all the while, yet hoping to be wrong, so she had to ask the question.

"Hai" Naruto muttered quietly just loud enough for Tsunade to hear.

Tsunade couldn't believe it, her team mate was dead. Sadness overcame her, ready to break out in sobs she remembered that she was the Hokage and because of that she couldn't afford to look weak, so she forced the sadness back and tried to keep a blank face, withholding all her emotions. She stood up from her chair and moved to the window overlooking Konoha, which she had sworn to protect, trying to hide her sadness from the rooms only other occupant.

"You know, you don't have to act around me, baa-chan." Naruto said knowing exactly that she tried to hide her emotions like he had always done when he had been younger. He moved towards her, so that he stood behind her, looking at Konoha through the window, too, even if both of their eyes didn't really take anything in. "You don't have to be strong all the time and hide your feelings."

Tsunade turned around and looked at him, his words having pierced through all the defenses she had tried to make since she had realized where her team mate was exactly, as all the sadness she had tried to hide overcame her and tears began to roll down her cheeks. Surprising her once again, Naruto hugged her, tears streaming down his face, too. "You can let it all out, baa-chan." He whispered from besides her as she broke out in uncontrollable sobs.

Naruto couldn't tell how long they remained in this position, Tsunade sobbing uncontrollably and he crying while trying to comfort her, yet failing miserably. After a while Tsunade's sobs began to lessen and finally stopped completely. They remained like that for another few moments, both regaining most of their self-control.

"H… How?" Tsunade asked, her voice weak, as she moved a bit away from Naruto and towards her desk where she had stored her sake. Yes, she absolutely needed some sake and that soon. "How did he die?" she asked again, her voice gaining strength again as she sat down and opened a drawer taking a bottle of sake and a small glass out. Naruto stayed quiet not answering her question. Getting annoyed at him she poured herself some sake into her glass and gulped it down in one shot. Focusing on Naruto again she was about to ask the same question again, when she noticed that he was trembling.

Naruto couldn't help himself, Tsunade's question had brought back all the memories he had tried to forget or at the very least come to terms with, during his time at Mt. Myoboku. His body began to tremble and for a few moments Naruto wanted nothing more than to forget all about it and never tell anybody about it, but he knew that he had to tell Tsunade about it, even if he didn't want to. "I did" he muttered quietly, his voice full of sadness and shame.

"Wha…?" Tsunade began to ask, but was interrupted by the blonde teen.

"I…" Naruto said, his voice getting louder and lanced with anger, anger Tsunade didn't know was directed at himself. "I killed him."

Tsunade looked at him flabbergast, not believing her ears. She couldn't imagine Naruto killing Jiraiya in her wildest nightmares, even if Naruto himself had just said he did, it just couldn't be true.

"I… I lost control" Naruto continued, tears streaming down his cheeks again, after the tears from earlier just had dried a while ago. "I was angry … confused. I didn't know what to do" he looked at her his eyes pleading her to believe him.

Naruto couldn't take it anymore. He was so angry at himself, filled with shame and sadness, he just couldn't bear it anymore so he took off and jumped out of the window, but only after he told her once more. "I killed him." And with that he vanished from the office becoming a blur on top of the roofs outside speeding away as fast as possible. The direction he was going was unimportant to him; he only had to get away from there.

Tsunade sat stunned. She couldn't believe it. Naruto had admitted that he killed her old team mate_. 'How is that possible?'_ she thought perplexed by the whole situation as she took the sake bottle and took a huge gulp out of it.

In the shadows Fukasaku had watched the whole scene quietly completely hidden from both of them. He felt sad, that Naruto still hadn't overcome Jiraiya's death at his own hands, but at the same time he knew that it was something he had to come to terms with by himself. Naruto had looked like he had done so, during their time training at Mt. Myoboku, but now the toad elder realized that Naruto had pushed everything back trying to keep everything bottled up inside of him. Taking a look at Tsunade sitting behind her desk drinking, Fukasaku knew that it was on him to explain everything to her. _'I guess it's better this_ way' he thought as he stepped out of the shadow and into the view of a very surprised Hokage. It looks like he had a hell of a lot to explain to her.

* * *

Naruto ran as fast as he could. He had to get away, he just couldn't take it anymore. He had to get away from everything for a while and calm down. He could feel the Kyuubi's power as it flood into him having been triggered by his emotional distress. He fought against it, he had after all promised it over his sensei dead body, so he had to keep it back and stay in control.

Coming to his senses again he stopped running and stood still breathing slowly he tried to calm himself, forgetting all about his surroundings_. 'In … Out'_ he thought as his breathing began to slow down as he calmed down. He knew Jiraiya wouldn't want him to act like this, but Naruto couldn't help it, the feelings he had bottled up and tried to hide, like he had always done in the days as a child, had simply overwhelmed him.

'_In … Out'_ he though for a last time, his head cleared and his emotions back under almost full control. _'You would probably laugh at me for acting like this, wouldn't you kyoufu (_A/N: kyoufu means godfather)_?'_ he thought sadly, a smile forcing itself on his face nonetheless as he imagined Jiraiya actually being here and laughing at him. Closing his eyes Naruto pictured Jiraiya standing in front of him, like one of the many times during their two and a half years spent training. How he wished that Jiraiya could actually be there. _'He will never see me becoming Hokage'_ Naruto thought as sadness once again began to overwhelm him.

Opening his eyes Naruto saw the village he had just run away from. _'I must have turned around after stopping'_ he thought as he looked at the village he loved. He could see the Hokage Monument, with the faces of each Kage looking over the village, looking over him. And not just the Hokages, his father's face was also on there. He was looking over him, watching every move of him.

'_You've always watched over me, dad'_ Naruto thought as a smile formed on his lips, his sadness vanishing_. 'Just like Ero-Sennin will. You'll both look over me and the village both of you loved. Won't you, kyoufu?'_

Naruto continued to watch the Monument for a few moments, until his thoughts went on. _'But this isn't the time to be sad'_ he thought as pictures of the Akatsuki, Orochimaru and sasuke flashed to his mind. _'I'll have to get stronger to protect the village you both loved, now that you can't anymore. I'll protect it with all my strength.'_

Wiping the last tear from his face Naruto stretched his sore muscles and looked around for the first time since he had stopped and saw three tree stumps in the middle of a training field ad realized that he had unconsciously made his way to his team's old training ground. A smile formed on his lips again as he thought about the happy time they had as Team 7, until Sasuke had run away.

Realizing that this was their old training ground he also realized that the memory stone was just next to it. The stone were his father's name was engraved to, along with a lot of other heroes of the village. The stone were Jiraiya's name would be engraved in a short time, too, when Tsunade would make it official.

Walking over to the stone Naruto fought back tears again, not wanting to dishonor the heroes on the stone by crying. No, he had to continue the path they had laid down; protecting and serving the village they loved with their lives. He would grow stronger and continue their path, so he promised himself that he wouldn't show weakness here, right in front of them.

Kneeling down in front of the stone Naruto's eyes began to flick over each name, skimming through them until he found one he had searched for.

Sarutobi Hizuren.

"Jiji" Naruto mumbled as he closed his eyes, memories of the old man being kind to him, beating him with his sexy no jutsu and eating ramen with him at his favorite ramen stand came to his mind and flashed in front of his eyes. _'Thank you for everything you did for me, jiji'_ he thought as he remembered the man he considered his grandfather fondly.

Opening his eyes again, they began to skim through all the names once again until he found the name he had been searching for.

Namikaze Minato.

His hand reached forward and he gently ran it over the engraving of the name. _'Dad'_ he thought.

'_I love you, just like you loved me'_ he thought fondly imagining his father standing right besides him, his arm laid on Naruto's shoulder. '_I just wish I could have met you, even if it's only for a few minutes' _he thought, wishing that he could remember the very first hours of his life, when both of his parents still had been alive.

'_You're both waiting for me in after life, aren't you?'_ he asked silently hoping to get a reply, but also knowing that it wasn't possible. _'You're waiting together with Ero-Sennin. Maybe I should just come to you? I don't know. I'm not sure what to do, but I think you'll have to wait a while longer. I don't plan to die, soon. I don't plan to die before becoming Hokage and I still have to protect the village, even if it would maybe be better to simply go and meet you.'_

His thoughts were interrupted as he felt a presence behind him. Someone was coming nearer, probably to pay their respect to the dead heroes, he thought as his finger once again ran over his father's name on the stone. Drawing his hand back he slowly stood up and stepped back from the memory stone, before he turned around facing the newcomer.

Walking towards him was a beautiful woman with long purple hair. She was obviously a shinobi and quite a skilled one at that, as one could see by the way of her movements. She was wearing black pants and a black long-sleeved shirt, which showed her quite well formed breasts rather nicely. In her hand she was caring flowers, to lie down at the stone and honor one of the fallen shinobi.

As she stepped closer Naruto could see her black eyes which were fixed on him, locking his eyes with hers_. 'She looks really good'_ Naruto thought and began to blame Ero-Sennin for making him think such thoughts out of the blue.

As she took another step forward Naruto recognized her, having seen her only a while ago; he couldn't tell exactly how long ago, as he had lost track of time while being overwhelmed with his emotions.

"Ohayo ANBU-san." Naruto greeted her with a smile, much to the surprise of said female off-duty ANBU, who hid it through, before it could even show on her face.

* * *

It had been an uneventful day for Yugao Uzuki. She had been on another mission together with her ANBU team. Another one of these easy missions, that most chunnins would probably be able to complete, if it hadn't been for the total secrecy that was once again needed for the good of the village.

Her team returned to Konoha and went to the ANBU headquarters, while she went on to report to the Hokage, just like every other time. It had been like any other report, until she had felt a presence of somebody who moved through, or better said on the window. Deciding between hiding her presence and attacking the potential threat to the Hokage's life, who she was sworn to protect, she chose to hide and a split-second later all traces of her presence in the room vanished, before any intruder could have noticed her.

Observing the intruder now sitting on the window-sill she saw a blonde haired teen, wearing an orange-black jumpsuit. He was obviously a ninja, as he had a Konoha hita-ate tied to his forehead and a holster filled with tools strapped on his right leg, not mentioning what else he could keep hidden with the outfit he wore.

"Ohayo, Tsunade-baa-chan!" She heard him greet the Hokage totally without respect as he leapt from the window-sill and into the middle of the room. He obviously felt at ease around the Hokage for acting so careless, she observed. But she had to repress a chuckle from escaping her mouth as his face was greeted by a fist courtesy of the angry Tsunade.

Yugao watched the two interact for a bit more, not really interested in their chatter and just getting the gist of it. The intruder had obviously been away for a while with Jiraiya and went on a mission without permission and returned now. But her interest was soon sparked when Tsunade asked about Jiraiya, seeing as he had yet to appear in the room. She saw the blonde haired teen lower his head, but she couldn't tell why. _'Is Jiraiya-sama really peeking again, or did he not return? Or is it something else?'_ she thought as several theories ran through her head.

As these theories run through her mind, the blonde teen surprised her by turning around facing in her direction. Thinking that she was totally safe as he couldn't have sensed her, she was even more surprised as he spoke up. "Would you be so kind and leave the room for this conversation, ANBU-san?" she heard him ask politely, yet she detected traces of sadness in his voice she couldn't explain. _'How? He shouldn't be able to sense me'_ she thought as she dropped her concealment technique and rose out of the ground.

She was glad for her ANBU mask, as it hid her surprise from the other occupants of the room. 'What should I do?' she asked herself, before she proceeded to ask the Hokage, who had hid her own surprise quite well without the use of a mask.

"It's okay, you are dismissed" the Hokage answered he question.

Nodding in acceptance Yugao vanished in a swirl of leaves having used the Shunshin no jutsu only to reappear on the roof of the Hokage Tower, from where she took off running towards the ANBU headquarter to check out for the day. On the way her thoughts went back to the conversation she had just been ordered to leave,

She pondered about it, how could a Genin, or what should be a Genin, be able to sense her. From what she knew he didn't even specialize in this area. _'Did Jiraiya-sama train him so much?'_ she asked herself, but realized that she hit the nail on the head. _'Something is up with Jiraiya-sama!'_

Not having enough information and seeing that she couldn't do anything about it, Yugao decided to let the matter rest for now. If it was anything important that mattered to her or the village the Hokage would tell her or the village sooner or later.

So she cleared her head and went on, stopping by the ANBU headquarters where she checked out for the day and changed out of her ANBU uniform and put on black pants and a black long-sleeved shirt before she left the headquarters. On her way towards her home she realized that she hadn't paid Hayate a visit in quite some time, so she stopped by a flower shop and picked up a few flowers before she walked across the village, through the crowd of non-shinobi's that covered every street during this time of the day.

While walking slowly towards her destination her thoughts wandered to her deceased lover she had decided to visit. It had been nearly three years since he had been killed short before the invasion from the sand and the sound during that year's chunin exam. She had sworn to herself to avenge his death, but she never did manage to find his killer. Now Suna was their ally and the chance was high that the culprit had already been killed in the invasion or the years later of active shinobi duty, or would never brought to justice.

But it didn't really matter anymore. She had realized how stupid it had been to try and avenge his death. She had realized that revenge leads one down a dangerous path, a path she wasn't willing to walk after she had realized that that had been what she was doing. She had sworn to protect this village and its Hokage, which was also her duty as ANBU, so she couldn't allow her personal feelings to intervene with her duty endangering the village she grew up in and loved and which her deceased lover also had loved.

As she reached the end of the street she had took, Yugao continued onwards and crossed the unoccupied training ground in the direction of the memory stone. When the stone came into her field of vision, as she took another step away from the tree-line on the side of the training ground, she saw that there already was someone kneeling in front of it. That didn't surprise her in the least, as Kakashi was often here for hours on end and she had met him here a few times already when she paid her visit to Hayate once in a while.

Stepping closer she recognized the person as the one that had been in the Hokage's office earlier, interrupting her meeting with the Hokage and who had asked her to leave the office to talk alone with the Hokage. She saw his hand run over a single name, but she couldn't make out the name from this distance, before he withdrew his hand and stood up stepping back from the memory stone.

She saw him turn around._ 'So he felt my presence' _she thought a bit impressed, even though she hadn't tried to really suppress it like she had done earlier in the Hokage's office. When she saw his face she was surprised to see that his eyes were somewhat red. _'He has been crying'_ she thought surprised and confused, both of which she didn't allow to show. _'Why would he cry?'_ she silently asked herself.

She took another step forward in the direction of the memory stone, which had been the reason why she came here, her eyes never leaving the blonde teen, whose eyes flashed with recognition as he recognized her.

"Ohayo, ANBU-san!" the blonde greeted her with a smile, much to her surprise, which was yet again able to hide thanks to her years of training. She hadn't known she was so easy to recognize as an ANBU when dressed in normal clothes and off-duty.

"Uzumaki-san" Yugao greeted in return, of course knowing his name as did the whole village. She watched as he walked a few feet away making way for her and then settled down on the ground, his back against a tree. He appeared to be bothered by something; she could tell having spent years as a ninja gave you some insight on people's minds and behavior in different situations.

"So, you have lost someone deer to you, as well?" she asked him, her voice just loud enough that it reached his ears, as she reached the memory stone and kneeled down her eyes focused on her dead lover's name. "You're wondering how I know? It's easy to tell if you know what to look for" she told him, as she could tell that he had been surprised and confused by her statement from moments ago.

It was then that Naruto realized that his face probably still held some traces of him crying a while ago. He didn't know why, but this woman interested him. Maybe it was because she cared which something he still wasn't all that familiar with.

"It's hard to lose someone you love" she continued her voice carrying her emotions over to him. She didn't know why but she thought she could trust him and that she could help him. She knew that he had lived a hard life, from several of her first ANBU missions and yet, at the same time had so much potential to become strong, maybe even the strongest.

"I know how hard it is to leave it behind, wanting to mourn forever. But you have a duty. Not only to the village, but also to your loved one." She told him as she laid her flowers down as her thoughts went to Hayate, memories of them being together flashing before her eyes.

Naruto thought about her words, as she seemed to be lost in her own thoughts. He realized that she was right, having come to nearly the same conclusion earlier. His thoughts went back as he remembered the promise he had made over Jiraiya's dead body. _'Yes, I will grow stronger, not only to make you proud, but also to protect the village I love' _he thought.

"Yes" Naruto muttered as he stood up his eyes fixed on the memory stone. "I will protect the village you all loved with everything I have."

Yugao heard him mutter something, not understanding what he had actually said. She stood up and turned around seeing him standing, eyes glued on the memory stone as she heard him make a promise to all the heroes on the stone to protect the village they loved.

She let a small smile appear on her face and seeing the determination shining in his eyes she knew that he meant it. Deciding that there wasn't anything more for her to do here, she turned her head to get a last look at Hayate's name, before she began to walk away.

Naruto saw her walk away in the corner of his eyes and turned towards her retreating form. "Wait!" he called out and saw her stop and turn around facing him. "Arigato" he said thanking her for helping him.

"You are welcome" she answered him a real smile gracing her face.

"You know I will become Hokage soon. And I will remember it was you who helped me" Naruto said returning to his normal attitude which he had had before all of these things happened.

"That's nice to know" Yugao replied not really believing that it would actually happen, but she decided to get to know him a little bit more. "Why do you want to be Hokage?"

"Someone once said to me that one's true strength only shows when he is protecting his precious people. I want to protect my precious people. And to me, the whole village is precious, even though some treated me like they did. I would die in a heartbeat to save this village" he said and added _'like you, dad' _silently in his mind.

As she looked at him in that moment, she believed that he could really make it. He had said it with such determination, that she couldn't do anything but believe his words. _'He has the right attitude to actually make it'_ she thought, as her eyes flicked over to the memory stone on which he had earlier sworn to protect the village all the dead heroes had loved.

'_What would you have done, Hayate-kun?'_ she asked herself. _'What should I do?'_ As she asked herself a picture of the Sandaime flashed in her mind. The Sandaime, who had helped her so much, had always believed in this child. Yes she remembered the old Hokage had once said to her that Naruto had inherited the Will of Fire.

Coming to a conclusion she looked at Naruto, whose eyes were glued on her. "If you really mean what you just said, then I will help you."

Naruto looked at her flabbergast. "How?" he asked curiously.

"When you want to become stronger, you have to have someone to teach you" she said. "I'm willing to help you along your way, but I can only show you the way, you have to walk it on your own." She saw him looking at her confused by her words. "In order to become strong, you have to find your own style. By learning and copying another, you might get strong, too, but to actually reach your whole potential you have to find your own style. Learn from other and incorporate their teachings into your own unique style."

Seeing him nod indicating that he understood, she decided to move on. "I won't be able to teach you may things, but I will be able to at least give you a few hints for your training."

"So are you ready for a spar?" she asked him as her hand reached into a pocket and withdrew a simple looking scroll. Seeing him nod enthusiastically she opened the scroll and put some chakra into the kanji on it, deactivating the storage seals. With that her ninja supplies appeared in a cloud of smoke and she put a kunai holster on each leg, before she resealed the remaining supplies and pocketed the scroll again.

Seeing that both were now ready to begin, they walked over to the middle of the training ground and eyed each other. "Light contact, co deep cuts or wounds" the female stated laying down the rules for the spar before she bowed, to which Naruto followed suit, not taking his eyes of her.

"Ready?" Yugao asked as she observed him closely trying to get as much information about his fighting style from his clothes and studying him for possible hidden weapons. His choice of clothes gave him a lot of opportunities to hide a weapon and the orange easily caught the eyes attention, perfect for a genjutsu user. Remembering all she could about him from her memories and from his choice of fighting stance, told her that he was more of a taijutsu user, preferring straight out combat. Also his control was most likely not good enough for genjutsu, as he had such a high chakra store, so she could rule genjutsu usage out, leaving taijutsu and ninjutsu.

Naruto, too, observed his opponent. It was something Jiraiya had taught him to do, saying he should have known it already, but still teaching it to him. He had seen her putting on the kunai holsters and she was clad in a non ninja outfit, so the two holsters on her legs most likely contained all her weapons. Yet, she still was an ANBU, one of the elite of the village, so she had to be good and that most likely in all three aspects, taijutsu, ninjutsu and genjutsu. _'I have to be on guard'_ he thought eyeing her carefully.

"Hai" Naruto answered to her question as he readied himself for the fight.

They stood there both observing the other's every move, when Naruto decided to act. His hand reached into his holster and took two kunais out, which he launched at his opponent, only to have her sidestep the thrown weapons and counterattack, dashing forwards forcing him into an exchange of blows.

Having just evaded another fist Naruto leaped back covering his retreat with a handful shuriken cutting through the air forcing Yugao to dodge the thrown projectiles rather than to come after him. Naruto had realized that the woman had been holding back a bit during the exchange of blows and that he had been in a disadvantage, having much less experience and inferior taijutsu skills.

Having thought of a quick plan Naruto dashed forward again, only this time with two Kage Bunshin besides him. Covering the distance in a split second, Naruto engaged the purple haired woman in a taijutsu match once again, in perfect synch with his two clones. The clones always attacked when the real Naruto revealed an opening in her defense or in his own, the later happening a lot more and always dodging her every attack as to not dispelling themselves.

Trying to get out of the situation Yugao jumped up and performed a back flip in the air launching a few kunai in the process, one hitting one of the two Naruto clones as he leaped after her, destroying it. Landing on the other side of the training ground Yugao only noticed one Naruto standing where she had come from and readied herself for an attack that was sure to come.

She wasn't disappointed when she sensed somebody to her left she dodged the kick aimed to her chest as she leaped to the right only to be surprised by a barrage of kunai flying straight in her new direction. _'Clever'_ she thought a bit amazed as she saw him use such a technique, as she herself knew just how difficult the kunai kage bunshin no jutsu truly was.

Taking a kunai in each hand Yugao began to block and dodge the incoming kunais. She dodged as much of them as she could, evading the incoming projectiles quite artistically only centimeters between her and the weapons, only using her own kunais to block if she saw no other way to evade them.

Dodging the last kunai she launched her own kunais at the one who had used the kunai kage bunshin no jutsu, guessing that he was the real one as he had held his distance and was soon to be proved right as one of her kunais nicked his cheek drawing a bit of blood. Seeing an attack coming from behind Yugao blocked the roundhouse kick and counterattacked with a quick strike towards the clone's chest dispelling it. Sensing another attack Yugao ducked barely avoiding a handful of shuriken which were coming at her, having been covered by the dispelled clone's cloud of smoke.

Locating the last Naruto Yugao threw a few shuriken in his direction multiplying them using the same jutsu Naruto had earlier used; using the time he had to dodge the incoming weapons to form hand seals for a new jutsu.

Naruto jumped to the side dodging all the weapons and was just about to attack when he was hit with the body paralysis and felt his body freeze, thanks to the kanashibari no jutsu by Yugao. Quickly shaking off the effect of the paralyzing jutsu Naruto tried to sense Yugao and realized in an instant that he had been caught.

Yugao had used the split seconds that Naruto needed to shake the effect of the jutsu off and moved behind him and took a kunai out, pressing it at his throat just as he had broken free from the effect of the kanashibari no jutsu.

"It's over" Yugao whispered in his ear standing so near to him that she didn't have to talk louder, sending shivers down his spine. Even though she had won easily against him, she had to admit that he was good and could easily become one of Konoha's strongest with a bit of guidance and hard work.

"Are you sure?" Naruto asked her as he moved forward, much to Yugao's shock, kunai digging deep into his throat only to have him disappear in a cloud of smoke.

'He is even better than I gave him credit for' she thought as she spread out her senses finding him standing ready to attack on a tree branch in one of the surrounding trees.

"That's enough for now" Yugao spoke just as Naruto dropped down from the branch intending to attack her again. When he heard her words Naruto stopped dead in his tracks, eyes fixed on her.

**

* * *

  
**

**Author's Note (A/N):**

**Well that was the third chapter, what do you think about it?**

**Well here are a few things I have to say:**

**1) I don't know if Yugao actually has black eyes in the canon, but I couldn't really tell what color the eyes were from the short scene were she appeared in the anime. I also haven't found anything about her eye-color on the net, so I have decided to make the black. If someone knows her real eye-color, please tell me and I will change it.**

**2) I hope I didn't add too much fluff in this chapter, but this was really hard to write. I also hope that I didn't make Naruto cry too often for your likings, but at this time in my story he is still a teenager and doesn't has his emotions under control all the time. This was necessary for him to actually grow up and become to Naruto I want him to be later on in the story. As you have no doubt figured out while reading, Naruto still hasn't come to terms with Jiraiya's death 100 percent, even at the end of the chapter. And Jiraiya's death will still play a huge part in the plot in the next few chapters (In some more than others).**

**3) Before I forget to say it and before someone asks, I have decided to make Yugao younger than she is in canon. She will still be older than Naruto, but not by so much like in the canon. How old exactly, I don't know yet, but you will know when I write it later on.**

**4) As you can see more action between the two of them is set to follow, but don't think they will hook up just like that, because that won't happen for a long time. (Sorry for those that want to see this as soon as possible, but I want to make it realistic)**

**5) And last but not least:**

** I have put a poll up on my profile page. There you can vote for what should happen to Sai later on in the Sasuke retrival arc. The possibilities are:**

**- Sai dies by an enemy's hands ****(either Orochimaru or Sasuke)**

**- Sai dies by Naruto's hand**

**- Sai lives and returns to Konoha and goes back to Root (never to be seen again)**

**- Sai and Naruto become friends**

**- Naruto lets Sai live, Sai feels indebted to him and promises to help Naruto later on (spy in root)**

**The poll is up since yesterday and will be up for about two weeks. I will decide what I will write in detail after the poll is finished, so go and vote for your favorite.**** The last thing I have to say about the poll is that no matter what, root will play a part in one or more of the plot arcs latter on.**

**

* * *

  
**

**That's it. I thank you all for you interest in my story**** and feel free to review and ask questions if you have any. Next chapter will contain the return of teams Kakashi and Gai; Naruto meets some of his friends again; Sai's first appearance; and a special scene which will be very important for the plot (at least a part of it). **


	4. Chapter 4 Revelation

**Disclaimer**:I don't own Naruto.

* * *

**Legend: **

"Naruto" - talking

'_Parents'_ - thinking

_Flashback_ – Flashbacks

"**Kit"** – Kyuubi talking

'_**Naruto'**_ – Kyuubi thinking

* * *

**Chapter 4: Revelation**

"Ahh … here again" stated Kakashi as he instantly recognized his surroundings having just opened his left and single normal eye, waking up in a nice and soft hospital bed. They had made it back from Suna in good time, as he had been carried by Gai, which had been embarrassing enough for him and he had been admitted to the hospital right afterwards. He had already known that he would end up here, so it wasn't much of a surprise; he knew the consequences of chakra exhaustion after all.

"He's awake." Naruto said, alerting his female team mate, who had been entirely focused on him questioning him with so many questions that he had lost count of the amount after a short while, to the fact. Naruto had heard that his team had come back in the morning, having overheard two Chuunin talking about Kakashi being hospitalized and had decided to visit his bedridden sensei. While he had been there, Kakashi sleeping soundly in the hospital bed recovering for his exhaustion, Sakura had asked him so much questions in the short time he had actually been there, most of which he didn't answer or avoided, much to his team mate's annoyance and bewilderment. So he was glad that his sensei had finally woken up, preoccupying Sakura for, at least, a little while.

"Good work, Kakashi" Tsunade's voice came from the entrance of the standard white hospital room. Naruto flinched a bit, unnoticed by all the occupants of the room and for that Naruto was glad. He hadn't seen Tsunade since he ran out of her office the day before and he didn't know how she would act or even how he should act. His emotions had just overpowered him and he hadn't been able to explain it to her like he had actually wanted. He had thought he was far enough to explain it to her, but it seemed like he had been wrong. He hadn't slept much that night, even though with Yugao's help, he just had too much to think about to sleep peacefully.

Seeing the Hokage enter with her assistant, Kakashi tried to get up to properly and respectfully greet his superior, but failed to do so being to weak for his arms to support his weight. "Tsunade-sama" he said while trying to sit up again.

"Don't force yourself, Kakashi-sensei!" Sakura declared, her medic-nin side showing for the first time Naruto had seen since he had went away with Jiraiya. Only after arriving at the hospital a while ago had he found out that Sakura had actually become a good medic-nin, even though he had seen her perform some medic-nin while rescuing Gaara he hadn't paid it much notice.

"I took a look at you earlier. You're going to have to stay in bed for a week. And after you're out, it will be another few days before I clear you to go on any mission." Tsunade stated. "Looks like it'll take some time for you to master that new Sharingan."

"You're right." Kakashi answered simply, thinking exactly the same.

"For the time being, don't overdo it and rest up." Tsunade ordered, trying to make it sound like she only advised it, but they all knew and understood that it was an order.

"Let's go, Shizune." Tsunade said and turned to leave the room after taking a quick and worried glance at Naruto, hoping that he was okay. Seeing the look Naruto understood. She knew everything. There was only one possible reason for that and that was that Fukasaku had come and explained everything to her like the old toad had had planned to do, but had his mind changed by Naruto. "Hai." Shizune replied and followed Tsunade out.

"Shisou!" Sakura said obviously something very important on her mind, or at least more important than continuing to interrogate Naruto about his time away, so she, too, followed Tsunade out of the room after a quick glance at Naruto that promised a continuation of the interrogation from earlier.

Naruto was left alone with the bedridden Kakashi, his mind in a conflict whether he should follow them and listen to what Sakura had to say or stay with Kakashi and pull the blanket down to reveal his sensei's true face. Ignoring his childish wish to see his sensei's face, Naruto reached into his item bag and pulled a green book out and laid it on Kakashi's night stand. "This is for you, Kakashi-sensei." Naruto said, smiling as he saw Kakashi's star struck face.

"H … H … How?" Kakashi asked confused. "This isn't supposed to come out for another few weeks."

"That's for me to know and for you to never find out." Naruto answered before he, too, went over to the door. "Well, I gotta go. Ja Ne." And with that said Naruto left the room, his senses spreading out searching for the three females that had left a few moments earlier through the nature, leaving his sensei confused at his students behavior and very annoyed that he couldn't get up to reach the book, due to his exhaustion. Cursing Naruto Kakashi gave in to his fate and laid down once again, sleep claiming him soon after.

* * *

After he found them, Naruto had followed them to the Hokage tower undetected. While the three females had entered the tower, Naruto had stayed outside guessing that they would go to Tsunade's office and so he could use his sensei tactic again, listening in through the window. He was however surprised that the three women stepped outside and on the balcony, but he quickly adapted to the situation and because of that he was currently on top of said tower, while Tsunade, Shizune and Sakura were on a balcony a level underneath him.

"This is information I received directly from Sasori, a member of Akatsuki. He said it was my reward for defeating him." He heard Sakura say, cursing that he had taken too long to find them and had therefore been too late to actually hear said information.

"The Heaven and Earth Bridge in ten days, huh?" he heard Tsunade ask for confirmation.

"That was four days ago, so it's in six days now." Sakura's answered reached his ear.

"Can we trust it?" he heard Tsunade ask his only female team mate. "What if it's a trap? With Orochimaru as bait, Akatsuki could be lying in wait for you at the bridge."

"If it's a trap, then we'll just have to fight." Sakura replied, her voice reaching Naruto's ear easily, sounding a very determined which almost caused him to snort, but he quickly remembered that he hadn't seen her fight yet, so she could have grown stronger in the time he had been away training.

"You say you'll fight …" Tsunade said before her voice vanished for a few moments. "But Kakashi will be in that state for at least a week. And there's only six days." Then he heard a sigh, obviously from Tsunade. "I guess I'll have to form a new team."

"Tsunade-sama" Naruto heard Shizune say, contributing to the conversation for the first time since he had been listening in. "In that case you should send a different team to investigate. Even if we send Sakura like you said, you must leave Naruto-kun out!"

At first Naruto thought he must have heard something wrong. _'Like hell, they won't leave me out!' _he thought angrily determined to go on the mission. While Shizune's concern about him was touching, he wouldn't be left out of a mission involving Orochimaru and perhaps Sasuke.

"Shizune …" Tsunade began, as Naruto listened curiously to what she had to say about Shizune's opinion. "Sakura is, like you, one of the few shinobi I can trust in. I am definitely sending Sakura's team, Team Kakashi, on this mission." Naruto's somewhat angry mood quickly changed as he was happy to hear Tsunade's opinion.

"Then wouldn't it be the same if my team went?" Shizune asked, still trying to argue with Tsunade's idea of sending Team Kakashi on this mission.

"It's not the same." Tsunade quickly replied. "Both Sakura and Naruto are desperately chasing after their old team mate, Sasuke. They strongly believe more than anyone in rescuing Sasuke. Those strong feelings will bring the mission to succeed. You and Sakura are different."

"Understood. But for this mission, Naruto-kun …" he heard Shizune beginning to try and argue the issue once more, but she was cut off from Tsunade.

"Well, now that you've heard all of it, what do you say, Naruto?" Tsunade said directed at him.

"I would go searching for members right away, but knowing you, you already have someone in mind." Naruto said as he stepped forward and into their range of sight.

"So you did grow a brain during the time with the pervert." Tsunade said, her voice filled with a hint of sadness, which was so well hidden, that one couldn't detect it if he didn't know it had to be there. Naruto didn't reply, looking at her intently trying to think of something to say about the happenings on the day before. "Are you okay?" Tsunade asked him, much to the confusion of the other women present.

"Yes. I realize now that my godfather wouldn't want me to be sad all the time." He said knowing that she would know who he meant, while the other two were left in the dark about the true meaning of his words. "So Fukasaku told you, didn't he?" he asked her while he thought: _'I guess I should have left it to him in the first place.'_

He saw Tsunade nod, as he felt two new presences enter Tsunade's office and quickly recognized them, or better said he guessed correctly seeing as there weren't that many option from the feeling he got from them. "You should probably go and get some sake now, before it's too late." He said before he vanished from the women's range of sight once again, leaving them to wonder what he had meant with that and wondering about his state of mind until they heard someone speak up from behind them.

"Tsunade, we would like to speak with you. Come."

As Tsunade recognized the voice she wished that she, too, had left when Naruto had left. _'Some sake would be really good, now'_ she thought remembering Naruto's last words before vanishing.

* * *

Naruto walked down the streets of Konoha, making his way to his destination, the hot springs. It had been a while since he really had the time and the mind to relax, so he thought to do it today, using the time spent relaxing in the hot water to clear his mind.

He was currently walking through a nearly people less street, when he heard a somewhat familiar voice calling him. "Hey! If it isn't Naruto!" He turned towards the source of the voice and found Shikamaru standing in before the door of a house with the sign 'Chuunin Exam Preparatory Committee'. Shikamaru hadn't changed much during the time, hair still in his ponytail and he was still wearing the standard Chuunin vest of Konoha.

"Shikamaru!" Naruto greeted his friend rather loud, falling back in one of his old attitudes.

"Did you just come home then?" his old friend asked him.

"Naw. I came home yesterday afternoon, but I had a lot on my mind then." Naruto replied his thoughts shifting back towards the memories of the day before.

"So, I heard that you already did a mission without returning, huh?" Shikamaru asked and continued soon not believing that he would get an answer. "You haven't changed at all."

Naruto ignored what his friend said; he would find it out soon enough that he had changed a lot. "So what are you doing here?" he asked gesturing to the sign on the building with his hand.

"There's a Chuunin exam soon. And it's troublesome but I've become an examiner." Shikamaru explained before he looked at him curiously. "What're you planning to do, Naruto?"

"Watcha mean?" questioned Naruto.

"You're the only one from our class who hasn't become a Chuunin." Shikamaru stated.

"I guess it was to be expected, wasn't it?" Naruto asked rhetorically before he went on. "Well, it doesn't matter if I'm a Genin or a Chuunin. I can always become a Chuunin later on."

Shikamaru looked at him shocked, or better with well hidden shock, deeply buried behind his lazy attitude. He had been wrong earlier, Shikamaru realized, Naruto had changed a lot. The Naruto he knew would have jumped at the chance to advance further on his road to Hokage.

"Hey, Shikamaru! Here's your lunch, your mother asked me to bring you." A new voice cut in. Naruto turned around and immediately recognized the speaker as Chouji. Chouji had changed quite a bit, he now had long brown hair and wore a type of samurai armour.

"Chouji!" Naruto yelled greeting his old friend.

"Chouji, don't you have a mission with Asuma-sensei and Ino?" Shikamaru asked just as his friends hand reached into a bag of chips he was carrying around.

"Hehe, still always eating" Naruto said with a smile as Chouji put some chips into his mouth. It was just as he remembered; Chouji had always been the only one who could eat as much ramen as he himself. It was like time he stood still here. If it only it could have stood still for him as well.

Suddenly Naruto sensed something strange from behind him. He had never felt anything like that, but he was one hundred percent sure that, whatever it was, was an attack directed at them. Seeing both of his friends tense in the corner of his eyes he knew that they would be fine. A split second later, Chouji had already thrown his bag of chips away obviously planning to stop whatever was coming at them.

Formulating a quick plan in his mind, Naruto jumped up, just as Shikamaru wanted to push him out of the way, failing to do so. As Naruto turned in the air he saw Chouji's fist, enlarged with his clan's special technique slam into what looked like a tiger-like animal, made out of ink. Seeing another one of these strange animals coming at them Naruto used Chouji's outstretched arm as a stepping stone and lunged at it hitting it with a punch, dispersing it into ink which tripped down his fist and landed on the street.

Landing a few meters before his two friends he heard Shikamaru say something. "Over there." Naruto knew without seeing where his friend was pointing or gesturing at that he meant the building down the street, as he had already sensed the person sitting on the roof there when he had reached out with his senses as he became aware of the attack.

The person was clearly a ninja of Konoha, as he wore the Konoha hita-ate and was clad in shinobi clothes, dark grey top and pants, but leaving his stomach exposed to the fresh air, showing his pale white skin. Naruto recognized a small scroll in the dark-haired shinobi's hands and guessed that it had something to do with that strange technique, with which he had attacked them seconds prior.

"I've never seen him before. He's wearing a Konoha headband." Naruto stated, even though his friends have probably already seen that, too.

"That came from nowhere" Shikamaru said thinking about possible reasons for the attack and possible counterattack plans involving their opponents technique, that he had already seen, and all he knew about the fighting styles of his two friends. "I've no idea, what he's doing, but that guy needs to be captured and handed over to the interrogation squad."

Naruto, too, was thinking about the attack, trying to figure out why the stranger had attacked them. _'Does he know? No, he is too young.' _He though memories of his early life flashing to his mind.

"I'll cover you. Go, Naruto!" Shikamaru shouted and Naruto took off without a word rushing down the street seeing Shikamaru's shadow already expanding in the same direction, ready to cover him.

As he came nearer Naruto saw the unknown shinobi move his arm, drawing something really fast on the scroll. Jumping up on the roof Naruto was only a small distance away from the stranger when he heard him say "Ninpou Choujuu Giga" and instantly six of the tiger like animals emerged from the scroll and launched themselves at Naruto.

Seeing no other chance to dodge Naruto jumped back doing a back flip in the air when he heard Shikamaru yell that he should get out of the way. As he landed on the ground a few meters away from the building he had just been on, he saw several spikes made out of shadow impaling the animals, ink dripping down on the street from the destroyed monsters.

Having a clear way now, Naruto jumped on the roof again drawing a kunai and thrusting it forward trying to disable the stranger with a single strike, but said stranger drew his kodachi from his back and blocked the attack. "Who the hell are you?" Naruto asked irritated, knowing that they were in a stale mate for now.

"You're fairly weak." The stranger, who had black hair and eyes as Naruto could see it clearly now from such a small distance, mocked grinning like a madman. "So what do you have between your legs?"

Just then Naruto disappeared in a cloud of smoke causing the stranger, who had used his body weight to get more power behind his kodachi while they were in a stale mate, to stumble forward and into the way of Shikamaru's approaching shadow. Reacting quickly the stranger leapt backwards avoiding the shadow attack, but jumping straight in the way of Naruto's kick, which once again sent him forwards to the shadow.

Tapping on the roof merely centimetres away from the approaching shadow, the black-haired shinobi jumped up into the air. "We'll meet again, Naruto-kun" the stranger said to Naruto, as ink began to spin around him. _'Shunshin no jutsu' _Naruto thought as he recognized the technique as a variant of the original jutsu.

Standing silently on the roof looking into the sky, where the stranger had disappeared only moments prior, Naruto heard Shikamaru's voice from down the street. "What was that?" Shikamaru asked, obviously revering to the whole incident.

"Chouji! I thought I'd find you here. For crying out loud, Asuma-sensei's angry that you still haven's shown up!" A new voice reached his ears from even further down the street, behind his two friends. Naruto recognized the voice instantly, without even having to turn around to face the newcomer.

"Sorry Ino. Some weird guy just started attacking us." Shouji tried to explain to her as Naruto turned around taking in her new outfit. She wore a purple top and skirt and once again wore her hair longer, like she used to do, a big streak falling down in front of her face.

"Weird guy?" Ino questioned as she looked down the street, seeing Naruto standing on the roof of a building. "Hey, is it Naruto?" she asked.

"No, the weird guy's not Naruto …" Chouji began but was interrupted by Ino's loud voice.

"Naruto! Been a while!" she yelled greeting him. Naruto jumped down the building he had been on and slowly walked towards his three friends, his hands in his pockets.

"Hi Ino" he greeted her, hearing Shikamaru mumble "Troublesome" under his breath.

"Don't you two have a mission?" Naruto asked Chouji and Ino who both nodded in return. "Well then, don't let me hold you up." He continued and began to walk away, needing time to relax and think, now more than ever, as his mind still rested on the strange unknown shinobi that had attacked them.

"Ja Ne." he yelled over his shoulder as he walked away, successfully evading all questions he knew they wanted to ask him, but which he didn't want to answer. Shikamaru stood there, stunned at the blonde's change in all the time, as his team mate's, too, said their good-bye's and left him standing there in the middle of a people less street in deep thought.

Naruto continued on his way, walking through the streets of Konoha, some filled with people while others were deserted, still knowing his way around slowly but surely reaching the hot springs at the side of the village.

* * *

Naruto felt his muscles relax as the hot water washed over his skin. He had arrived at the hot springs a few minutes ago and went in, now all alone in the entire men's section. The scene brought back memories, painful memories of his time with Jiraiya when they often had went to hot springs, not to relax, but for Jiraiya to do his research.

He silently sat in the hot water, only his head sticking out of the surface, as he relaxed as best as he could with his senses always on alert. He slowly closed his eyes enjoying the feeling. He hadn't felt as relaxed as he felt now for a long time, not even while meditating during his training in the sage arts. After he had lost control of the Kyuubi his body had felt like shit and so did his mind, because he knew that it was his fault. After that he had never wasted a second, always pushing against his limit while training to master the natural chakra training.

Now, finally had he found peace. He had finally realized that it would do him no good to punish himself over it and that Jiraiya would have wanted him to continue with his life, having fun and reaching his dreams. _'Probably peek on girls, too? Huh, Ero-Sennin?'_ he thought smiling. Yes, that's exactly what Jiraiya would have wanted.

Yes, he would make Jiraiya proud, not only by growing stronger and becoming Hokage, but also by living his own life, having fun, just like Jiraiya had lived most of his life.

His thoughts quickly began to wander as he wondered if he had already made Jiraiya proud of him, by mastering the sage mode as far as it had been possible for him. Fukasaku had told him that he had mastered it faster than Jiraiya had done and that Jiraiya had never gotten as far with controlling the natural chakra. But still Naruto couldn't really use it in battle, like the brief use in his fight against that Akatsuki member had shown, while Jiraiya had been able to do so.

His thoughts went back to his training, as he and Fukasaku returned to the mountain after having saved Gaara from the Akatsuki.

_Flashback_

_It had been a few hours, now, since he and Fukasaku had returned. They had eaten a quick bite and rested until Fukasaku had told him to begin._

_He had explained the technique to Naruto before Naruto had went to save the Kazekage, so they could skip all theoretical mumbo jumbo and went straight to the practical part of the technique. "Ready?" the toad elder asked and Naruto nodded in reply._

_The old toad jumped on Naruto's shoulder and put his hands together concentrating hard, as Naruto did the same. 'Amphibian sage technique' Fukasaku thought as they tried to merge together, becoming one in order to master the sage mode._

_Fukasaku tensed just before he was forcefully launched from Naruto's shoulder, an image of the Kyuubi Kitsune flashing in front of the toads eyes. "Let's give it another try." Fukasaku said struggling to get up._

_They did exactly the same procedure again with the same result, as Fukasaku slammed into the ground rather hard. "Looks like it's no use." Fukasaku said forcing himself to smile as he looked at the shocked Naruto._

"_No use?" questioned the confused Naruto as he hadn't seen the Kyuubi flash in side his mind._

"_I think it's the nine-tailed beast within you rejecting me." The tired toad elder said, coming to the only logical solution._

_Naruto remained quite inwardly seething. 'No way. What's all this training been for, then?' he thought angrily trying to calm himself down. Just then, he made another promise to himself, to master the sage mode so that he could actually use the natural chakra in battle, no matter how long it would take him to do it, to make Jiraiya really proud of him._

_End of Flashback_

He had tried to master it gathering the nature's chakra while moving, but had failed every time he had tried; it dissipated just as he gathered it while moving. Fukasaku had said that he was wasting his time, as it was impossible to do, but Naruto had tried it anyway, never succeeding but he wouldn't give up yet.

Then it had been time for his return, while Naruto hadn't wanted to return at first, he knew that he had to do it. He still couldn't really use the sage mode for a fight, only if he stood still to gather the chakra and even if he had that time the sage mode only lasted a short time if he moved, which was a must in a fight.

Trying to get more information Naruto did the only thing that he thought could help him. "Kuchiyose no jutsu" he said as he slammed his hand on the ground besides him, after biting his thumb. The smoke cleared away revealing Fukasaku standing there.

"Naruto-chan" the toad elder said looking somewhat surprised that he had been summoned. "What's up?"

"I wanted to thank you for explaining everything to Tsunade-baachan." Naruto said.

Fukasaku remained silent, not needing any thanks on that matter. "But surely that isn't all that's on your mind?" Fukasaku asked after a few moments of silence knowing full well that Naruto wouldn't summon him just for thanking him.

"Ahh, no" Naruto said lamely before he paused for a few seconds. "I've been thinking."

Fukasaku looked at him curiously. "About what?"

"The sage mode" Naruto simply said knowing that Fukasaku would understand what he meant and what he wanted to know.

"I see." Fukasaku sighed. "So you still want to try and gather the nature chakra while moving? You certainly are a stubborn one …" he said before he drifted off. '_These are the necessary qualities to become a Sennin. And on top of that, you have the sheer tenacity to never give up.'_ The toad elder thought fondly.

"I have a bad feeling about my next mission" Naruto admitted breaking Fukasaku out of his thoughts. "It's about Orochimaru and I have a feeling that something dangerous will happen."

"You think you will encounter Orochimaru." Fukasaku said interpreting Naruto's words.

"Yes. And I will need the sage mode if I even want to stand a chance against him" explained Naruto.

"I'm sorry, but I can't help you" the toad elder said somewhat sadly. "It may be difficult to accept, but I'm afraid it is quite a physical impossibility. Running while trying to gather the natural energy, which requires stillness. This is like trying to look left and right at the same time."

"I see." Naruto said knowing that still he wouldn't give up not caring if it's said to be impossible or not, he would do it.

"Is there anything else you need?" questioned the old toad after a long pause.

Naruto shook his head, all he had wanted from the toad elder had been information about the sage mode and if the elder had had some kind of idea in the last day, that he hadn't thought of, but it didn't seem like it.

With a last look at Naruto the toad elder left in a cloud of smoke, leaving Naruto to his own thoughts, returning to the toad mountain. Naruto let all the words replay inside his mind, trying to find even the smallest clue but with no success. Coming to a conclusion Naruto decided to focus on his other training rather than trying god-knows how many times to master the sage mode, for now at last. Thinking about his own training, his thoughts went back to the evening of the day before.

_Flashback_

_Naruto and Yugao __sat in the shadow of one of the trees on the side of the training ground, resting from their little spar. They had settled there after they had agreed to first catch their breaths before talking about it and so they sat in silence, longer then they had actually wanted to._

_It was already beginning to get darker, as dusk began to settle over Konoha when Yugao finally broke the silence, instantly catching __Naruto's full attention. "I said I would help you, didn't I?" she began._

"_You are already quite skilled,if I were to guess I would say you're easily on a standard Chuunin level. I know that was nowhere near going all out, so it's hard to say what you actually have to improve. So correct me if I'm wrong with my evaluation. First of all your usage of the Kage Bunshin is better than that of everyone I've ever seen."_

"_You were able to sense me, so your senses are good as well." She continued after a short pause to think over what to say. "Your stealth was good at the end when you hid yourself, but during the fight it needs to be improved. So you should probably get some darker clothes, which would make hiding a lot easier for you. Also you should improve your speed, while you are already quite fast for a Chuunin level shinobi; it's not fast enough for fighting a high Jounin level opponent, which I'm guessing you are planning to achieve as soon as possible, yet alone anyone at Hokage level._

_She paused looking at him for a reaction, but he stayed still listening to every word she had to say. It was good to hear a new opinion about his current level. "You should also work on your tactics. While you are good at coming up with fast plans and improvising, it won't be enough against a high level enemy."_

_She made another short pause thinking back to the fight trying to get as much out of it as possible. "There is also your taijutsu to be considered. I easily overpowered you, not with strength but experience. But what you lack at experience you make up with your instincts. So you'll only continue to improve your close combat skills by fighting and gaining experience."_

"_Then there is control" she said moving on to the next point. "You obviously have a lot of chakra, but I could sense that you wasted a lot during that spar. So your chakra control needs work. While you may say it isn't necessary, control is quite important and can decide a fight. Also with better chakra control you can also learn genjutsu, not only the defence against it but also the art itself, which can be deadly."_

"_What you absolutely have to learn, if you want to advance on your way is how to use elemental chakra." She said looking at him and seeing his confused look she decided to explain. "There are five basic types of chakra, also called elements: Fire, Wind, Lightning, Water and Earth. Most shinobi has one of these as natural affinity. SO those who have a fire ability excel in fire jutsu."_

_She paused looking at him trying to figure out if he understood everything. "So what chakra type do I have?" Naruto asked curiously._

"_I don't know. You'll have to test it some time. There are special cards that we use to figure it out. You just have to channel some chakra into them and they'll show you what type your chakra leans to the most" she explained. "But mastering nature manipulation usually takes a very long time, at least a few months if not more."_

"_But as I've said before, I won't have the time to train you so you should go and ask your sensei about it sometime" she told him and he nodded in reply understanding that her ANBU duty was a lot more important than training him, ANBU were part of the elite after all._

"_So back to what we were doing" the purple haired beauty said. "There is one thing you should never forget while training. When you try to improve your weaknesses, never forget your strengths, because they will dull if you forget about them."_

_He nodded as he thought about her words. It made sense._

"_Is there anything else you want to know?" she asked him after seeing him nod in understanding her words of advice._

_Naruto thought about it for a few seconds before he spoke up. "You said I should improve my chakra control, but I don't know any methods to do it. So could you please show me some?" Naruto asked._

_She thought about it for a second before she nodded. Seeing her nod Naruto decided to move on to the next question he had. "Could you possibly teach me some justu? Not some flashy ones, but rather something like you used on me earlier." _

_Seeing her hesitate as she thought over it Naruto decided to move it up a notch. "Pretty please" he said as he activated the 'puppy dog eyes no jutsu'. _(A/N: That just he to be there, sorry folks)

_Yugao couldn't help herself; he just looked so cute sitting besides her using these eyes trying to get her to agree. "Ok, Ok. I'll do it" she said which caused Naruto to jump from happiness, before he sat down next to her again. "I'll write something down on a scroll and give it to you as soon as possible, ok?"_

"_Hai" he said nodding enthusiastically falling back into his old self._

_They sat there in silence after that, each thinking about different things. Yugao was already thinking on what to put on the scroll for him and Naruto thanked god for meeting her. They sat there, obvious to the steadily approaching darkness, as it was already late into the evening, when they were snapped out of the peaceful sitting in silence by a growl of Naruto's stomach._

_Naruto instantly realized what had growled and blushed a bit out of embarrassment, thankful for the semi-darkness as he finally noticed it._

"_Well, it looks like we're supposed to part here and now." Yugao said with a smile. "You should go and get something to eat and I should make my way home."_

"_Yeah." Naruto said simply__, as he looked to the ground searching for his normally so strong confidence. Finally finding it he looked up again, their eyes meeting. "Why don't we go and get something to eat together, my treat?" he asked flashing her a smile._

_Yugao looked at the blonde for a moment, her thoughts flashing back to Hayate shortly, as that scene somehow reminded her of him, before she realized that the two scenes were totally different. "Why not." she answered smiling at him, as her thoughts returned to the present._

_End of Flashback_

Naruto had a thoughtful expression on his face as his thoughts went back to their time later that evening, mostly their discussion at the end of that time, before he forced them to return to what he had been thinking about. _'Training'_ he thought. _'I wonder when she will get me that scroll?' _he asked himself curiously wondering what she would write down in it for him.

His thoughts went back to Yugao. His thoughts had gone to her a few times that day he realized and he couldn't do anything against it. Just thinking about her caused him to smile. He didn't know what it meant, but he only remembered feeling like this once, thinking about Sakura when he was younger.

He sat there letting his muscles relax in the hot water, for a long time, finally able to relax for the first time in a while; time passing by. Some time later he stood up from his sitting spot and swam over and got out of the water, wrapping a towel around his waist as he made his way to the building. Inside he went over to his clothes and put them on.

Just as he was about to leave he felt a familiar presence enter the hot springs or to be specific the women's part of the hot springs. _'Yugao'_ he thought with a smile.

Turning around he walked back out of the building through the same door he had come in moments ago and walked towards the fence that separated the men's part from the women's part. _'Hehe, Ero-Sennin would probably smile in his grave'_ he thought as he remembered his godfather's perverted ways.

'_She will probably kill you if she finds out'_ Naruto's good side said inside his mind causing Naruto to stop, rethinking the whole situation trying to figure out what he should do. Coming to a conclusion Naruto did his favourite hand seal and created a clone of himself. "Go stand guard" he ordered and the clone went over to the only entrance to the hot sprigs watching out for newcomers.

Naruto smiled as he suppressed his presences good as he could; hoping that it wouldn't be able to be sensed by anyone not used to the nature's chakra. While travelling with Jiraiya he had learned a lot about shinobi life and techniques, but he had also learned about the art of peeking from the master himself, even though he hadn't been interested in it at that time.

* * *

A/N: Next part is rated 16+, so anyone reading this under 16 even though it's originally rated M should skip this part.

* * *

A smile appeared on his face as he found a hole in the fence and he settled down on the ground, pressing his eye as near to it as possible, as he looked through it. On the other side of the hot springs several women were enjoying their time at the onsen, some with a towel around them, others completely naked. He looked at them, his smile growing even bigger as he finally understood what Jiraiya found so good at peeking, but soon he forced his eyes to move on, not paying that much attention to the single women.

His eye switched around searching for Yugao but she was nowhere to be found. _'I must have been wrong'_ he thought somewhat sadly as looked at the other women, slowly but surely losing his interest. Just as he was about to pull back he saw someone new step out of the building on the women's side of the onsen. Focusing on the newcomer Naruto recognised Yugao in a split second. She had a white towel wrapped around her covering every private part of her body.

She slowly walked over to the water, the towel falling to the ground just before she was about to enter. She stood there, her long hair falling down behind her, showing her well endowed breasts to the world, or better said, to the women and not knowingly to him, too. Her private area was neatly shaved, not a single hair standing on it.

As she put her foot in the hot water, testing the temperature, Naruto could see her pussy, the nice pink lips parting slightly, before she put her foot completely in the water and began to slowly disappear from his view as she submerged into the water, only her head and breasts sticking out of the water.

On the other side of the hot springs Naruto could feel his pants tighten, as his member got aroused from the sight. His eyes followed Yugao, only sometimes switching over to other girls admiring their bodies for a few moments, they too were quite well built and some of them could have easily made the lead character in one of Jiraiya's books. But to Naruto they didn't matter even though he enjoyed the sight, but his eyes switched back to the beautiful purple haired woman every few moments.

As Yugao finally settled down in the water, sitting in the hot water like Naruto had earlier, only her head was sticking out of the water as she relaxed. His eyes began to wander around more and more, only returning to the purple haired ANBU every so often, rather looking at the girls where he could actually see something he hadn't seen that much in his life.

After a while however Naruto got bored of looking at the different girls and his eyes rested on Yugao watching her sitting in the hot water for a while. After a while she began to swim over to her towel lay on the ground and began to exit the water. Naruto's eyes widened slightly at the sight, water tripping down her body. She bent down to pick her towel up giving him a perfect view of her nice ass. 'Got damn' Naruto silently said in his mind as he enjoyed the view she was giving him to the fullest.

But the view was short lived as she stood up again having picked the towel up, which she began to wrap around her body covering it up again much to Naruto's unhappiness. Naruto's eyes followed her as she made her way towards the building and continued to watch her until she vanished completely inside the building.

Seeing that Yugao had left Naruto's eyes began to switch around again, skipping through all the different women in the women's section until he pulled his head back a few minutes later, turning around so that he could lean his upper body against the wooden fence. His member finally calming down as it began to shrink to its normal size again. He sat there totally lost in thoughts, all of them on the women he had just watched, mostly the purple haired women had had met the other day and finally he understood what Jiraiya found so good at peeking completely. _'Hehe, good that Ero-Sennin gave me a copy of each of his _books' he thought trying to figure out where he had stashed the scroll all those books were sealed in, never having bothered with it yet.

* * *

A/N: All the little kids can read again. And sorry to all that already got their hopes up reading the first A/N saying it's only for those over 16, expecting it to be a lemon.

* * *

After a while he finally stood up and straightened his clothes before he walked over to his clone, which has been guarding the entrance to the men's section the entire time. Just as he was about to dispel the clone he stopped, freezing in mid-action.

'"_This is like trying to look left and right at the same time" Fukasaku had said'_ he thought with a smile as he dispelled the bunshin, for the first time since he had learned the jutsu noticing the foreign memories entering his mind. Memories of him standing guard at the men's section entrance, bored because nothing happened.

"I figured it out" Naruto said with a smile as he exited the hot springs, his mind already trying to come up with good ways to use what he just found out.

**

* * *

  
**

**A****uthor's Note (A/N):**

Well there you have it. As I said on my profile, I'm not really happy with how some of the scenes in this chapter turned out and I will be editing them eventually, but first let me hear your opinion on the chapter. If you think it could be better, just tell me what you think and I might even use your ideas when editing it.

* * *

Now let me say some things to a review of naruto/harem123:

I'm glad you took the time to leave a review after reading my story, I appreciate it and I don't really care if you didn't like my story, it was to be expected that some people won't like it, but I just have to say some things to you.

First the pairing won't actually happen for a few chapters yet to come, even if there are some scenes that indicate it (like in this chapter). I promise you it won't be for a while, because I want to make it as realistic as possible. Also she won't be really teaching Naruto, as I guess you know now, she will most likely help him out some later, but it won't really be a student-teacher relationship that they will have. Next is that I want Yugao as a real human and not some ninja without any emotions, so I think it's normal to sometime remember your lost lover, if you really loved him. It's human in my opinion. Next I promise you she won't be in a relationship with Naruto because he reminds her that will never ever happen with me writing the story.

Your next point is on the strength of the ANBU: In my opinion the ANBU are portrayed as weak in the canon (especially in the anime filler episodes), which I don't want to in my story. In my story they will be the elite in the village together with the jounin (so they are on the same level as jounin, Kakashi did afterall join ANBU after being promoted to jounin). Their main reason is to protect the Hokage and to do the secret missions, so they have to be good at infiltration, etc. but also at combat.

As I said it will take a long time until Yugao and Naruto get together and she doesn't see him as potential boyfriend at the moment, while I try to make Naruto act at least sometimes as a normal teenager, eyes and mind quickly switching among different girls, developing crushes, etc. etc.. There will be other girls, or maybe just on other (I'm not really sure yet) which will be some type of rival for Yugao, but as I said I don't like Sakura and I can promise you it won't be another of the main girls.

Well I guess that was enough about that, and while I respect your opinion I just had to get some facts across as I see them. I do know after all what I have planned to write later on, so I just had to make that clear.

* * *

Well now let me return to the chapter. As you can see I let the scene with Naruto meeting Team 8 out. Why? Because I have something planned with them later on (and I'm sorry to say but it will take at least 5 chapters until they will appear. So sorry to all the team 8 fans out there.) As you can see I introduced Sai in this chapter, so I guess you all know what will soon happen, but I can promise you some changed from the canon.

So now on to the things I'm not happy about in this chapter. First is the interacting between Naruto and Tsunade. Why you might ask. It's just that after the last chapter there was a whole lot more potential for their interaction in this chapter, but I just couldn't really get it across like I wanted so I tuned it down a bit. Next scene I'm not happy about is the flashback to the conversation between Naruto and Yugao, mostly the end of it. But I just didn't have the mind to write it better this week and I just wanted to get this chapter finished, so it's not really good.

Next thing before someone asks, Naruto and Yugao aren't going on a date. Naruto's nervousness is easily explained, because he never asked a girl to go eat something with him and him being a teenager and Yugao doesn't see it as a date. For me it's normal to go eat something together after sparring like they did. As you can see the situation reminded her of a situation she and Hayate had been in, but she realises that the situations were completely different. I thought about it for a while if I wanted the sentence in the story or not and came to the conclusion to add it, trying to make Yugao more human and to create a round character of her person in the long run.

The scene continuing from there will be in the next chapter, so I guess you just have to wait to read that.

Now on to the last scene, I wanted Naruto to figure the Kage Bunshin out by himself, so I thought about how he should do it and I'm trying to make him a real teenager and finally I got the idea that I finally used. I hope that you like it, as it will be the only such scene (him peeking). Why? Because he will continue to grow up and with that such teenager like actions will lessen.

Last but not least I wanted to say that I'm always open for you to ask questions or state your opinions. Only so will the story get better. After all: several minds are better than one. So feel free to leave a review or send me a message.


	5. Chapter 5 Funeral

**Disclaimer**:I don't own Naruto.

* * *

**Legend: **

"Naruto" - talking

'_Parents'_ - thinking

_Flashback_ – Flashbacks

"**Kit"** – Kyuubi talking

'_**Naruto'**_ – Kyuubi thinking

* * *

**Chapter 5: Funeral**

After Naruto had left the hot springs he slowly walked home only to be surprised by a note on his apartment's door, saying that he was to meet his team in five minutes. Realizing that he would be late, if he didn't take off immediately, Naruto jumped to the roof and took off running.

As he arrived at the meeting point he saw that Sakura was already standing there waiting for their new team mates. "Hey, Sakura-chan!" Naruto called out as soon as he dropped on the ground and began to walk over to her. Stopping besides her Naruto looked around. "This is where we were supposed to meet up, right?" he asked and continued not waiting for a reply. "But no one's here yet."

"There's still some time left before we're supposed to meet up" Sakura replied even though Naruto knew that this wasn't the case as he had been just in time, so there couldn't be more than a few seconds left until they were supposed to meet.

"Well, I hope they're not late all the time, like Kakashi-sensei." Naruto said remembering all the hours they spent doing nothing but waiting for their sensei to arrive.

"Hiya!" a new voice cut in as someone walked out of the building they were standing in front of.

"You!" Naruto quite loudly recognizing the person instantly, having fought against the black haired teen only a few hours ago together with Shikamaru and Chouji, as the stranger had attacked them out of nothing.

Just then another person, clad in a standard jounin outfit, stepped out of the building and addresses the three teens. "Um… From now on team Kakashi" he said catching their attention. "I'll be taking Kakashi's place as leader of this team."

"Naruto, do you know this person?" Sakura asked referring to the black haired teen, ignoring their new team leader.

"Sorry about before" the black haired teen said to Naruto. "I just wanted to gauge the ability of my new team member. I just didn't know how much I'd have to look after the little prick with no balls."

Angered by the teen's words Naruto appeared behind him, kunai pressing against the stranger's throat. "What did you say?" Naruto asked quietly.

"Hey! He's our team mate now! Calm down!" Sakura yelled at Naruto.

Pressing the kunai just with enough strength to call blood Naruto took it back and put it back in its holster, as he stepped back next to Sakura.

"Anyway, from now on the four of us are a team." The jounin said as if nothing just happened. "But look at you, there's no time to toss you all in a cage and get you used to each other. So introduce yourselves."

"Uzumaki Naruto." Naruto stated simply.

"I'm Haruno Sakura" Sakura said impassively.

"My name is Sai." The black haired teen, now identified as Sai, said.

"Well now that we know each other, that's the end of that." Yamato said simply. "Now I'll explain our mission."

"From here, the four of us will proceed to the Tenchi Bridge. There we will intercept the spy Akatsuki has in Orochimaru's organisation and bring him back. This is a chance for us to find out about Orochimaru and Uchiha Sasuke. We can gain a valuable source of information which may lead to formulating a plan to assassinate Orochimaru and take Sasuke back. So stay focused!" the jounin explained.

"We will leave tomorrow evening at seven pm straight." The jounin said before he disappeared in a swirl of leaves, followed by Sai who vanished in a swirl of ink, leaving Naruto and Sakura standing there alone.

* * *

Naruto awoke early the next morning, already knowing what would be happening today. He got out of his bed and took a shower before he put on his clothes, not his normal orange outfit, but rather he dressed all in black.

After he ate a bite Naruto left his apartment walking to his destination like a civilian. He reached it and entered through the arc, stepping into the graveyard that held a monument to the deceased Hokage's that has been built shortly after the Sandaime's death. The graveyard was filled with graves, all shinobi graves as the civilian's had a separate graveyard.

Naruto gave the graveyard a once over, seeing the hole in the ground which would soon be his sensei's last bed. He stood there silently for some time, having come several hours before the funeral was scheduled to begin.

He slowly walked over to the wall on the right side of the graveyard, the wall with the most distance between it and Jiraiya's soon to be grave. As he reached it he stopped and sat down on the ground in front of it, his legs crossed and his eyes closed. As he sat there he began to get in tune with the nature, as he gathered as much natural chakra as he could, also drawing as much chakra from the Kyuubi, as he could without losing the precise control the gathering of the natural chakra needed.

A few minutes of gathering and mixing the chakra's together, the blond haired teen opened his normally blue eyes, which were now yellow, with a small tint of red and a red outlining. The yellow eyes looked like those of a toad, a sign of a true sage. He bit his thumb drawing blood before he put his hand on the ground besides him, pushing as much chakra as he could into the technique he was about to perform.

"Kuchiyose no jutsu." He said quietly and a second later nearly the whole graveyard was covered in a big cloud of smoke. Naruto stood up, already feeling the signs of exhaustion, so he had to force himself up, the cloud of smoke not even mattering to him. Using the strength that was still left in him he jumped on the wall and sat down on top of it so that he could overlook the whole graveyard. It would take a while until he would have recovered enough to move around freely again.

As the smoke cleared slowly it revealed a lot of toads, probably every toad there was, from tadpole, to normal sized toads, to the huge fighting toads, to Gamabunta himself, the toad boss. They all stood at the sides of the graveyard, careful not to step on the other gravestones, leaving a big space around Jiraiya's soon to be grave free, for the ninjas and civilians that were sure to come to the funeral.

As Naruto overlooked the toads he realized that it truly were nearly all toads, only the ones truly needed at Mt. Myobazu and the ones unable to come themselves, like the eldest sage, hadn't followed his summon. He felt exhausted, more so than he ever remembered and sweat was running down his face. That had taken a lot out of him and even though he was already gathering small amounts of natural chakra to try and get his reserves back up, he could feel that he truly needed some rest.

He sat there silently not moving an inch, not even when he felt a team of ANBU nearing. They had most likely felt the enormous amount of chakra he had put into the technique and came to investigate. Finally a long time later he saw four ninja enter the graveyard, carrying what appeared to be Jiraiya's casket to his soon to be grave. They looked truly surprised at the sight of all the toads filling up the graveyard, but carried out their task anyway, putting the casket down next to the grave waiting besides it.

As he looked to the grave, Naruto saw that Fukasaku and his wife had moved closer to it, standing only a few metres away from it. They waited knowing that the funeral would begin shortly.

It was then that people started to enter, all dressed in black. Naruto recognized Tsunade enter as first and saw her walk over and stand between the two toad elders. Naruto stayed sitting there, even as more people began to fill in, many of them known faces to Naruto, having seen most of them around the village some time. There were most of his friends together with their families, the people from the village council and a lot of the older ninjas, mostly jounin. But Naruto also saw some people he had never seen before, here to honor his dead sensei.

He could see that some of his friends wanted to come over to him, but they all stayed with the crowd, some like Kiba had to be held back. Naruto was thankful for that, not wanting to deal with his friends now of all times.

The people stood in rows behind Tsunade and the toad elders, waiting for the ceremony to begin. The ceremony began as Naruto saw Tsunade say a few words, but her voice didn't reach his ears. The four ninjas that had carried the casket here began to slowly let it down into the grave and began to cover up the hole with dirt as soon as the casket reached the bottom. When the hole was filled up a stone plate was laid over it and on top of it a stone was put, a stone like on every other grave on the graveyard, with the name and the Konoha sign on it.

After the stone was laid down the four shinobi retreated and left the graveyard, leaving the ones attending the funeral by themselves. Slowly but surely everybody went up to the gravestone to lay down a single flower, first of all Tsunade followed by the two toad elders.

Naruto silently watched the proceedings, as they were all paying their respect to his sensei, without even knowing how he died, as Tsunade had declared it an S-class secret after hearing the full story from Fukasaku. They paid their respect without even knowing that it had been him, the hated demon, who had done it.

After they had gone up to honor the dead Sanin, the people began to leave. Naruto saw Yugao walk to the exit her eyes focused on him for a few seconds. Their eyes met for a split second, drawing a ghost of a smile on his face, before she turned her head and walked through the arc and out of the graveyard. _'Arigato, Yugao-chan.'_ Naruto thought as he remembered her words from two days ago. The words that had set him straight, back on his path he chose to walk.

Naruto remained in his position even as all the people had already left, leaving him alone with all the toads and Tsundae.

With one last look at Jiraiya's grave Tsundae, too, began to leave walking towards the exit, before she stopped and turned towards Naruto. "Are you going to be alright?" she asked concerned, just loud enough that her voice would reach his ears.

Naruto nodded slowly. He couldn't see a single tear on Tsunade's face, but also knowing that she had to appear strong in public, so she had probably buried it all deep inside. Seeing his nod Tsunade wasn't sure if he really would be alright or not, but seeing that there appeared nothing that she could do about it, she turned around again and left.

Several minutes later Fukasaku and Shima were walking towards Naruto stopping in front of the wall he was sitting on. They looked around the graveyard before they looked at Naruto. "Arigato." Shima finally said looking Naruto straight in the eyes.

Naruto of course knew what she was referring to; she thanked him for summoning them all to their summoner's funeral and for the chance to say their final good-bye to him. "It's the least I could do." Naruto said his voice barely above a whisper.

The toad elders nodded and looked at Jiraiya's grave for a last time, before they vanished in a cloud of smoke, slowly followed by all the other toads as they returned to their home. As the whole graveyard was engulfed in smoke, Naruto finally stood up and jumped down the wall, to make his way to Jiraiya's grave.

He made his way through the many rows of graves and as he finally reached Jiraiya's grave he kneeled down in front of it, glad that he was finally alone and able to say his good-bye to his godfather on his own.

As he kneeled there his thoughts went back to a few of the many memories he shared with the late Sanin. Their first meeting; Jiraiya showing him the Rasengan for the first time; them sparing during their training journey; Jiraiya peeking on the women in the hot springs; Jiraiya ruffling his hair; him saying that he was proud to have him as his apprentice and finally their last conversation, where he told him about his parents and later the promises Naruto had made over Jiraya's dead body.

A single tear left both of his eyes and went down his cheeks, before they finally dropped down on Jiraiya's gravestone.

He didn't know how long he stayed there just like that, memories flashing in front of his eyes, totally unaware of his surroundings. Finally Naruto reached into one of his pockets and put out a book. He placed the book among the flowers the other people had laid down. It was 'The Legend of the Gutsy Ninja', the first book Jiraiya had ever written.

Naruto had read it after Fukasaku had given it to him during his time spent at the toad's mountain. _'I hope you don't mind, but I still need the others' _Naruto thought knowing that Jiraiya would probably have smiled at that and said that Naruto finally saw the light, realizing how great of an author he was and recognizing his writing as the great pieces of art the actually were.

One might ask why he needed the others. It's simple, because not only had he finally understood what was so great about the female body, but also because he had finally been able to get a date. Not a date date, but a date nonetheless. And after seeing the lovely woman naked yesterday, Naruto couldn't help himself but to feel drawn to her.

_Flashback_

_After Yugao had agreed they walked out of the training ground and into the village. Naruto let her lead__ the way not knowing the way to a good restaurant nearby, having only eaten at Ichiraku when he had been younger._

_They had walked in silence until they reached a take-out restaurant, where they ordered dango for two people. They jumped on the roof and settled down on a bench, enjoying a great view of Konoha in the dark. Sitting there they enjoyed their meal, eating in silence both not really knowing how to begin a conversation._

"_You know, you've gotten a lot stronger." Yugao said finally breaking the silence. "I remember how we used to chase after you, when you pulled a prank, when I was still a rookie ANBU." She paused__, a smile on her face. Naruto remained silent as he chose to look at her waiting for her to continue._

"_You were very good at escaping. Always trying to get away and succeeding a few times, too." She said as she __chose to overlook Konoha rather than looking at him. "You've come far. I remember you were still in the academy then; nobody there to really teach you; always trying to get attention. Always acting non-ninja like."_

_Naruto looked at her intentionally, as she still looked away from him, but talking about him like that. Now he knew that she was right, but he still didn't like being talked about like that. Thinking for a second Naruto decided to remain silent, waiting to hear what she was trying to say._

"_You've grown a lot stronger since then. And it's all thanks to your time with Jiraya-sama." She continued causing Naruto to flinch and to look away._

"_So I was right." Yugao said much to Naruto's confusion. "It was because of him, wasn't it?"_

_Naruto returned his glance to her and asked: "What?"_

"_It was because of him you visited the memory stone." Yugao said as she looked him straight in the eyes, seeing everything she needed to know in them. "So it was him you lost." She finished, her voice showing a hint of sadness._

_Naruto remained quite, not making a single sound. He had known that it would soon be found out that Jiraiya was dead, but he hoped it would take longer, so that he could have had more time to prepare._

"_It's hard, isn't it, to lose someone so close to you." Yugao said after a few moments, as she realized that he wouldn't talk about it by himself and just like that. She realized that she had to help, to get it of his hear, as she had needed that help back then, too._

_Naruto didn't make a sound as he stared into her eyes. He never had someone to talk to like that, so he didn't know what to do. He never had someone that he could talk to about everything; his childhood; the Kyuubi; his thoughts. Never had he had someone to talk about these topics._

"_I know it's hard" Yugao said quietly. "Nearly three years ago, just before the invasion I lost someone very close to me." As she said this she turned her head and stared at the dark Konoha gain, as memories began to resurface._

"_I swore to kill the one who did it. I nearly lost myself. But I had people who helped me and after some time I came to peace with it." She paused turning around to face him again. "While I do still miss him sometimes, I now know that there is nothing I could do about it."_

"_While it hurts, you've to accept it. When you lose someone he will never come back. Yet your memories about him and your feelings still remain, but he just vanished." Yugao said pausing after she finished the sentence, as she saw Naruto lose focus for a second._

_Hearing her words Naruto remembered Iruka's words at the funeral of the Third Hokage. 'When a person dies, they lose everything … As we grow, these bonds also grow and become stronger … Anyone with these bonds would be like this because they cherish it.' Having remembered his sensei's words Naruto understood and returned his attention fully back to Yugao._

"_While it hurts, the only thing that helps is talking about it to someone." Yugao continued as she saw that she had his attention again. "I know it's hard to talk about it, especially to a stranger, but I will listen if you want to."_

_Yes, she knew that this was all she could do to help him; the rest was up to him._

_They remained sitting there in silence as the darkness finally settled down fully, lights already starting to switch off in some of the houses. Naruto, for his part didn't know what he should do. Should he tell her or not? 'What will she think about me if I tell her?' he asked himself afraid that she would see him as the monster he sometimes thought himself of._

_Yugao waited patiently for a while. After about ten minutes she came to the conclusion that he wouldn't talk about it to her and decided it would be for the best if she left him alone for now._

"_I understand" she said as she got up and began to step away. "I will leave you alone, but it really helps to talk about it." She continued quietly, as she put another step between them, nearing the side of the building._

_Finally picking up his courage, Naruto spoke up, just as Yugao was about to reach the side of the building. "It was me" he whispered, his voice so low he didn't really know it she would hear it._

_Yugao heard it, despite it being so low in volume and stopped dead in her tracks, waiting for him to continue._

"_It was just before we planned to return. He told me …" Naruto paused, not being able to talk about it normally and as such not being able to tell her about it in much detail. "I got angry and lost control."_

"_The Kyuubi began to take over and before I could fight it, it had taken control." Naruto said before he stopped pausing for a few seconds. "When I woke up again, everything was destroyed and Ero-Sennin was lying on the ground, blood pouring out. So it was me, I killed him." Naruto finally got out, as tears made their way down his cheeks._

_Much to his surprise two arms wrapped around him a moment later, as Yugao hugged him as he sobbed on her shoulder. "Its okay let it all out." Yugao whispered in his ear, as she patted his back._

_It took Naruto a few minutes until he calmed down again and Yugao drew back. "Arigato." Naruto whispered to her, as he began to feel better once again._

"_You are welcome" Yugao said, as she sat down besides him again._

_They sat in silence once again. Naruto, while he was grateful towards her, also wondered what she was now thinking about. 'She thinks I'm weak, doesn't she?" he asked himself. 'Better weak than a monster.' His 'other-side' replied._

_Losing track of time as they remained seated in silence, both lost in their own thoughts, it was Yugao who finally stood up and broke the silence. "It's already late" she said simply._

_Realizing what she meant, as he was brought out of his thoughts, Naruto, too, stood up. "I'll walk you home" he said to her._

"_You don't have to." Yugao replied._

"_Yes, I do." Naruto cut in before she could say more. "You've helped me so much today, so it's the least I could do"_

"_If you insist." Yugao said after a moment, thinking about it._

_They walked to the side of the building and jumped down, landing on the street below. The street was empty of people, all already at home. As they walked down the weak lit street, Yugao decided to help him some more._

"_If you live up to the promise earlier, you will make him proud, you know." She said to him as they walked side by side. "Grow stronger and become Hokage like you always wanted and remember him if you actually make it."_

"_Yes" Naruto whispered as he thought over her words. "I will become Hokage and I will remember Jiraiya, Jiji and all the other heroes of the village if I make it." He said with such determination, that Yugao knew that he would make it someday._

"_You've already come quite far." Yugao said. "From our spar earlier I would say you are already on a higher Chuunin level. So I guess you would be somewhere on low jounin level in an all-out fight."_

"_I've told you this earlier, all that you really need now is experience and time to hone your skill." she said. "Skills that are quite wanted by the ANBU." She added after a few seconds of silence, much to Naruto's surprise. "Your skill, mostly your sensing and kage bunshin, would take you far in the ANBU and there you would gain experience a lot faster than as a normal shinobi."_

"_ANBU?" Naruto asked in a low voice. "You think that I would do well in ANBU?"_

"_Yes, but not yet" Yugao replied and decided to explain when she saw his questioning glance. "While you could easily make ANBU within a few weeks, I don't think it would do you good. ANBU are trained for quite some time to be the best in what they do. You would have to train to be an ANBU and only that. So you wouldn't have the time to learn the more important things that you should learn first."_

"_So you think I should wait until I have improved my other skills?" he asked, already understanding what she was trying to explain._

"_Hai" Yugao replied hoping that he had understood._

"_Is there another way into ANBU without all that training?" Naruto questioned her._

_Yugao thought about it for a few moments, before she replied. "Normally no. But the ANBU is directly under the command of the Hokage, so it could be possible if the Hokage approves. But I don't think Tsunade-sama would agree if you didn't know what you need to know to be an ANBU."_

_Naruto thought about her words as they stepped before her door. "Would you be willing to show me what I need to know, if I'm ready?" he finally asked before she could open the door._

"_Yes." She replied. "You would do well in ANBU and I would help you to get in."_

_Naruto looked her in the eyes trying to read her intentions and couldn't find any deceit, so he trusted her words. "I will think about it." He finally said, not sure if he truly wanted to be an ANBU. While they were the elite, they also acted in secret and he wouldn't be able to go and get Sasuke back, like he had promised Sakura he would._

_As silence once again began to settle between them, Yugao opened the door to her apartment and took a step forward, stopping when Naruto took her hand in his. "Arigato" he said as their eyes met once again. "For everything."_

"_It was nothing" she said as she moved forward and kissed him on the cheek, before she drew back. "I'll see you around, even if you don't see me." With that said she stepped inside her apartment and began to close the door, but was stopped by Naruto._

"_Would you at least tell me your name?" he asked as their eyes met once again._

"_Yugao" she said with a smile. "Yugao Uzuki." After she said that she closed the door as he had withdrawn his hand that had blocked it a moment ago._

"_Yugao Uzuki." Naruto whispered in a low voice as he stood there stunned before her door. She had kissed him on his cheek, even after everything she knew about him and everything he had told her today._

_That night, after he finally came back to his senses, Naruto went to his apartment and thought about everything for a long time, as sleep didn't seem to come and claim him. As he lay in his bed thinking about his ninja life; the past, his thoughts often went to the beautiful woman he had met that day. As he thought about everything long and hard, he never came to a single solution as sleep finally claimed him._

_End of Flashback_

A smile made its way to his lips, as Naruto remembered this and his thoughts went to the promises he had made to his dead sensei. _'I will make you proud of me and I won't lose control ever again.'_ He repeated his promises in his mind intending to never break them.

"Arigato" Naruto whispered, continuing in his mind. _'For everything you have done for me Ero-Sennin.'_

Naruto stayed there for another while, before he finally stood up. "Good-bye" Naruto spoke, before he turned to the exit and left the graveyard.

He made his way to his home, stopping only to get a bite to eat. When he entered his apartment through the door he saw a scroll lying inside on his table. Walking over he picked it up and opened it. Reading the scroll, which had been written in a fine and beautiful hand, he realized that it was the scroll Yugao had promised to write for him. "Arigato" he whispered even though he knew she wouldn't be able to hear it.

* * *

Naruto strolled down the street on his way to the gate to meet with his team for their mission. He knew that he would be early having more than half an hour still to spare, but he hadn't found anything to do in his apartment, so he had decided to go early. He had read through the scroll Yugao had left, several times already, but wasn't in the right frame of mind to train at the moment.

While he had tried to remain impassive during the funeral, not showing any emotions, it had been really hard for him. A part of him just wanted to break down and cry, but he had realized, thanks to Yugao's help, that not only wouldn't Jiraiya have wanted him to do so, but that he also had other things to do. Like protecting everything he and his sensei held dear to their hearts, namely the village hidden in the leaves.

He had thought of reading the books his sensei gave him, but realized that then just wasn't the time for it, so he had sealed them inside a scroll and pocketed it, just before he readied himself and left his apartment.

That's when we find our young hero strolling down a street, lost in his thoughts. He was so lost in his thoughts that he hadn't perceived any of his surroundings and as such it didn't take long until he bumped into someone. Snapping out of his thoughts he saw that he had bumped into a black haired man and he had knocked the bottle out of the man's hand, which then had shattered from the impact on the ground. "Whaaa…." The man yelled out, his breath stinking from the alcohol, which Naruto recognized immediately standing only inches apart.

"You" the obviously drunken man said, as he turned his focus from his broken bottle towards Naruto. "Watch where you're going brat! Now go, buy me a new bottle." The black haired civilian said angrily, drawing the attention of the few other people walking on the street, who stopped to look at the scene the man, was creating.

Naruto let out a low growl. He had been in such a situation a million times already, as a child, but since becoming a shinobi it had stopped, as people slowly started to see him as the person he was.

Hearing the growl the civilian backed away a bit, for the first time actually looking fully at the one he had bumped into. Realizing who had bumped into him his eyes widened, but taking a quick glance around he saw all the people watching the scene and assumed that it was just like all the other times, all these years ago and decided to give the demon what he deserved. "How dare you" the black haired civilian said, trying to sound terrifying, but to Naruto it didn't sound terrifying at all, having dealt with a lot worse.

Having learned early on to not engage in such a situation, Naruto took a step to the side and began walking, passing the black haired drunk, who only turned around when Naruto was already a few steps away. The crowd around them, too, was beginning to clear up as most of the people thought everything was over and went their ways.

The drunk, getting even angrier by the demon's lack of response, kicked the remains of the shattered bottle in Naruto's direction, actually hitting Naruto's foot with a rather large splinter of glass, making a small cut in Naruto's pants. But Naruto didn't seem bothered by it at all, continuing to walk away. "It was you, wasn't it?" the drunken man bit out angrily.

Hearing the words, Naruto stopped and looked over his shoulder curiously, not even knowing what the man was referring to, but fearing the worst.

"Of course it was you" the man said, satisfied to have once again caught the attention of the people on the street. "You're the one who killed Jiraiya-sama, you monster."

These words hit Naruto like a bolt of lightning, as he stopped dead in his tracks, freezing on the spot he was standing, not moving an inch. His mind seemed to shut down, as it was once again reminded of what he had thought he had put behind him and moved on.

The man seemed to be happy by Naruto's reaction, interpreting it as prove for his theory. "Not even defending himself" the man said, his tone taking on the happy note his face was already showing. "First you took Yondaime-sama from us and now Jiraiya-sama." He continued, his voice lanced once again with anger and hate, his happiness from seconds ado already forgotten in his drunken rant.

Around them the people looked on completely stunned. _'Was it true, or is the drunk ranting some shit?_' was the thought that was in most of their minds, as they were reminded of their own hate, which most of them had already forgotten in the time of Naruto's absence.

"You deserve to die!" The drunk yelled as he picked up the largest splinter lying on the ground and ran towards Naruto trying to attack the blond with the weapon made of glass. But before he reached the still frozen blond, an ANBU appeared in the way of the drunk and stopped his advance.

"You should leave, Uzumaki-san" the ANBU said in an unemotional voice, as they have been trained. The drunk so shocked by the ANBU's sudden appearance dropped backwards to the ground, his rage against Naruto all but forgotten, facing the elite ninja standing in front of him now.

Naruto snapped out of his stupor, when he heard the ANBU say something. Not caring for anything he jumped away, even if his mind hadn't truly registered the ANBU's words. He just had to get away. He had thought he had gotten over it with the funeral, but the man's words had hit him hard.

Stopping on a roof of a building, Naruto came to the conclusion that he wasn't in the right state of mind for any mission at the moment, yet alone a mission as important as the one he was supposed to go on. But at the same time, Naruto wasn't one to back out. He would go on with it no matter what.

'_I've to calm down.'_ Naruto thought. _'In … Out … In … Out …' _He tried to calm himself focusing only on his breathing, while it helped a little, there were still several thoughts popping up in his head even if he didn't want them to. _'"You have to stop your flow as an animal. Find your balance and become utterly still, at one with nature!"' _Fukasaku's words flashed in his mind.

Settling down cross-legged, Naruto closed his eyes as he tried to meditate like Fukasaku had taught him to master the sage techniques. As he felt himself becoming one with the nature, wind blowing around him calming his mind and body, Naruto began to feel at ease for the first time since his training on Mt. Myobazu, where he used the training to get his mind of the things. He even felt more relaxed then he had been at the hot springs that day before, where the hot water had felt so relaxing.

* * *

At seven pm that evening: we find our favorite teen standing at the main gate of Konohagakure, wearing his orange-black jumpsuit, with the small cut in his pants. He had changed back into it as he didn't have the time, or the state of mind to go back and buy something new, as he had originally planned and said to Yugao at their 'meeting'.

He had come here only minutes prior, having meditated the whole time, finally finding real peace. He had arrived just after Sakura and began to check his equipment, as he realized, that he might have easily missed something earlier in the state of mind he had been in.

After a quick check he realized that he had everything he needed. He had two kunai holsters, one strapped on each leg, an item bag and another small bag with different scrolls in it. He recognized one scroll as the one Yugao had written for him and another as the sealed 'Icha Icha' books. There were also scrolls containing spare-clothes and several other things, which might come in handy.

Finishing his quick check, Naruto's attention switched back to his team mates, who were now all present, having arrived while he had checked his equipment.

Yamato looked back at his team, seeing them all ready to depart. "Right then! Team Kakashi departs" he said as he began to walk down the road, the younger shinobi's following him.

After a while Yamato decided to pick up the pace and jumped into the trees, preferring the ninja's way of traveling, jumping from branch to branch. He took off followed by his subordinates.

* * *

**Author's Note (A/N):**

**Well there you have it.**

**I'm sorry for the long wait, but I just didn't have any time to write last month. But I'll try to make it up with a fast update for the next chapter. Next chapter will hopefully be epic (or as I have planned I think it is epic), but I make no promises.**

**Now on to this chapter, there are several parts with which I'm not really happy. First the Flashback: I know I had to do it sometime, so it was either like I did or it could also have been last chapter. When I wrote the last chapter I decided to place it where it is now, but I'm still not happy with it.**

**Next I'm not sure if I hit over the top with the confrontation by the drunk civilian, but I thought Naruto had to be confronted with it before he could actually move on.**

* * *

**Now on to other matters:**

**Once again I've a poll in my profile. So go there and vote. The question is what mask Naruto should get when he actually becomes an ANBU.**

**So go and vote!!!**

* * *

**Next chapter, as I'm sure all of you can guess will be about the confrontation with Orochimaru. Happy guessing on what will happen and make sure you don't forget to leave a review, I appretiate them all.  
**


	6. Chapter 6 Fight against the Snake

**Disclaimer**:I don't own Naruto.

* * *

**Legend: **

"Naruto" - talking

'_Parents'_ - thinking

_Flashback_ – Flashbacks

"**Kit"** – Kyuubi talking

'_**Naruto'**_ – Kyuubi thinking

* * *

**Chapter 6: Fight against the Snake  
**

Naruto felt all his muscles relax, as he sat in the hot water of the hot springs. They had gone there to relax one last time, before focusing only on their mission ahead. While it was meant to relax, Naruto had felt anything but relaxed earlier, having his taichou Yamato on one side and his creepy and gay (or at least Naruto thought so) team mate Sai on the other, who made comments about his penis all the time.

So Naruto had been glad when Yamato got up and left, followed not much later by Sai, leaving Naruto all alone in the men's section of the hot springs. Finally being able to relax with both of them gone, Naruto leaned back and closed his eyes, enjoying the feeling of the hot water on his skin.

Just as he was about to snooze off, having felt somewhat tired all day long, he heard a giggle and shushed voices, snapping him back into reality and fully awake. Opening his eyes he turned in the direction he thought the sound had come from and saw the fence dividing the women's section from the men's. Of course, he remembered that he wasn't alone as there were several women on the other side, one of them Sakura if she hadn't already left.

'_Sakura-chan'_ Naruto thought tempted to get up and make his way to the fence and peek through some hole. Just as he was about to get up from his relaxed position he stopped and laid back down, closing his yes once again realizing that somehow he didn't really want to. As he thought about this his thoughts went back to his last visit to a hot springs back in Konoha and instantly started to smile.

'_She doesn't even compare in the slightest to Yugao-chan'_ he thought as he remembered the view he had of the beautiful purple haired woman. At the thought of Yugao with her well endowed breasts and her perfectly shaped private area, Sakura just couldn't compare. Seeing the naked Yugao appear in front of his eyes, Naruto was glad that there was truly nobody in the men's section, as his ember began to harden somewhat.

Opening his eyes startled, he looked around somewhat embarrassed. Sighing gladly that there was truly nobody around Naruto focused his thoughts on different things. Finally his member calmed down and shrank back to its normal size and Naruto leaned back once more trying to relax. But as he closed his eyes again it didn't take long until his thoughts returned to the purple haired beauty. Realizing that it made no sense to stay here like that, Naruto swam across the pool of hot water and got out, wrapping his towel, which he had hung on a chair near the water when they had entered, around him and made his way inside the building.

A few minutes later Naruto, now fully dressed in his usual orange black jumpsuit, exited the building through the front door. No knowing what he should do, as they had the day free to do what they wanted to do, Naruto walked down the street aimlessly. Exiting the small town they were in, Naruto continued for a bit until he found a nice spot.

He settled down, his back against a tree trunk out of the many of the forest that surrounded most of the small town. He was now a bit inside of the forest, wide enough away so that he should have the time for him alone. Sitting there he reached into one of his item bags and took a single scroll out. Eyeing it critically, having once said that he would never read one of these books; Naruto opened the scroll and channelled some chakra into it.

A split second later a few books appeared in a cloud of smoke. Laying the scroll and all but the first book besides him Naruto looked at the cover, a small smile on his face. 'Icha Icha Paradise' he read and opened the book as he leaned back, making himself comfortable sitting on the ground leaning against a tree. Finding a comfortable position Naruto started to read, imagining Jiraiya smiling down on him from the heaven.

It didn't take long until a small blush started to show on his face as he imagined himself being the male. His pants tightened around his member, but for once he didn't care as he continued to read, his mind picturing Yugao in several of these positions; a smile staying on his face.

As the sun began to go down and darkness began to grow under the trees, Naruto finally stood up, having read as much as he could, but not yet finishing reading all the books. He resealed the books in the scroll and stood up, playing with the scroll in his hands, spinning it around as he thought about several of the scenes he had just read in the books.

After a few moments he pocketed the scroll, back into the item bag where he had taken it from earlier and dusted his clothes off, before he began to walk back into town, towards their meeting place, a smile always plastered on his face.

* * *

"Here we are" Yamato said to his team when they arrived at their destination, the tenchi bridge.

They had made it here in time, only having stopped to rest and to get to know each other better through sparing. They had made a plan, or better said Yamato had told them the plan, that should be foolproof.

The three teens of the team hid themselves behind a boulder on their side of the bridge, while Yamato made his way to the middle of the bridge, where the Akatsuki spy was already waiting. Yamato had made a perfect disguise in form of Sasori's puppet, which should give him enough time and which should let him get near enough to capture the spy. "Good luck, Yamato-taichou." Sakura whispered besides Naruto, as they observed their team leader approach the Akatsuki spy.

"It had been a long time, Sasori-sama" the spy said as Yamato in disguise reached him on the middle of the bridge. The spy turned to face the disguised Konoha jounin and drew his hood back revealing himself as Yakushi Kabuto, much to the surprise of Sakura and Naruto. "It had been five years."

"Were you followed?" Yamato asked, his voice sounding like Sasori matching the disguise as he acted out his part of the plan, even though he, too, had been somewhat surprised by the spy's identity.

"No it is safe." Kabuto replied simply.

"How are you?" Yamato asked the spy.

"When your jutsu was lifted and I remembered who I really was, I felt somewhat disorientated. I am still somewhat heavy headed." Kabuto said.

"I have some questions for you" the disguised Yamato started.

"I have little time, so please make it brief. It was a great risk to slip away from Orochimaru to come here." Kabuto said sounding somewhat tense and paranoid.

"Tell me about the location of your base and about Uchiha Sasuke" Yamato said saying exactly what they had planned beforehand.

Kabuto looked at the puppet for a second before he replied. "We have many bases, to keep from being discovered we change bases on a weekly basis. There are of course bases in countries besides the sound. But we have various movement methods, which can be cumbersome. Our current base is hidden on a small island in a lake in the north. We will move from there in three days. Uchiha Sasuke is also there."

At this very moment a sound on the side of the bridge caught their attention and Kabuto spun around fearing the worst, only to see a rabbit in the bushes, which quickly vanished again. "What … Just a wild rabbit." Kabuto said as he relaxed again.

On the other side of the bridge Naruto tensed. _'No, that wasn't just a rabbit' _he thought trusting his senses. He had after all used natural chakra all the time they had been there, to sense everything that happened and now he felt something wrong. There was defiantly someone on the other side of the canyon, someone strong and not fully human. _'Orochimaru!'_

"We have a problem" he whispered to his two team mates, who looked at him perplexed. They obviously hadn't sensed anything and Naruto doubted that the two on the bridge had been able to sense anything, which was proofed when they began to talk again. But Naruto knew better, as one couldn't hide from the nature.

"What do you mean?" Sakura asked in a low voice from besides him, as Sai continued to stare at the interaction between their team leader and the spy, ignoring them.

"You will see it soon." Naruto replied as he thought of ways to turn this mission into a success, even if it was doomed to fail with the traitorous Sanin's arrival.

On the bridge the two jounins began to act their parts again. "Now, about that one task you asked of me, Sasori-sama." Kabuto said much to Yamato's discomfort, as he didn't know anything about the task at all. "Even after his transmigration, Orochimaru cast a protective jutsu on the cellular specimen of the left over corpse. I was unable to perform a data analysis on that specimen."

"I see" Yamato replied calmly, trying not to blow his disguise.

"On that note please hand me the item I'm here for. I can't continue to stay here much longer. If it's found out that I'm meeting with you here like this, then I'll be killed." Kabuto said, his hand extending towards the fake Sasori.

"Very well" Yamato said knowing that he had to act now or never, as he drew a kunai.

"My, My. What an amusing conversation. You wouldn't mind if I were to join in myself, would you?" Orochimaru asked as he appeared behind Kabuto, his back next to Kabuto's, a snake already winding itself around the spy. Acting quickly and before it as too late, Kabuto jumped away, landing next to the disguised Yamato.

"If it weren't for you drawing your kunai, Sasori-sama, I may not have been able to get away in time" Kabuto said much to Yamato's relief, who was quite stressed from the situation, wondering what he should do now that Orochimaru appeared.

On the sidelines two of the teens were surprised by the Sanin's sudden appearance, one showing it openly, while the other managed to keep an impassive face, like he had been trained to do for years. The last member, however, wasn't surprised as he already guessed that the one he had sensed on the other side was Orochimaru.

"That getup of yours, it sure brings back memories, Sasori." Orochimaru said, as his summoned snake disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

"So you followed Kabuto here, then?" Yamato asked trying to keep up the disguise as long as possible.

"I was merely hoping to say a word or two of thanks." Orochimaru told the fake Sasori. "That lovely boy there you bestowed me with. I was able to make quite good use of him. The development of but one jutsu required the bodies of well over a hundred live human test subjects, but thanks to that boy there, I was bale to use the same test subjects over and over again. It's quite hard to come across enough test subjects, after all."

As Yamato used the time to come up with a possible solution to his current situation, Kabuto activated his medical jutsu around his hand and used it to cut through the wooden puppet. Yamato looked surprised, but jumped away instantly wondering what was going on. As he was still airborne, Orochimaru used his Sen'ei ta-jashu, attacking Yamato with the snakes that shot out of his sleeves, only for Yamato to turn into a wooden figure as the snaked wrapped around him and bit him.

"This is a kawarimi using Mokuton ninjutsu, don't tell me you're …" Orochimaru trailed off as the snakes retreated back into his sleeve.

"Orochimaru-sama, is that the real Sasori?" Kabuto asked as he got over his annoyance that the person avoided the attack.

"Oh no, not at all." Orochimaru replied. "Kabuto, are you telling me you worked for Sasori but were never shown his real face?"

"Well, he was a reclusive individual after all, always hiding in that puppet of his." Kabuto explained himself to his new master.

"What are you talking about?" Yamato cut in. "Kabuto you're supposed to be an Akatsuki spy. You should have been under the effects of Sasori's jutsu all this time."

"Ah yes, that jutsu" Kabuto replied with a smile. "Orochimaru-sama did me the honour of dispelling it quite some time ago."

"I wasn't expecting you to change sides, acting as though you were still under the effects of Sasori's jutsu." Yamato said bothered by the whole situation he found himself in. "I suppose this means it was Orochimaru's jutsu you fell prey to then." He continued trying to buy some time to come up with a plan to get out of this situation.

"No; not exactly." Kabuto explained smiling at the Konoha jounin. "All I fell prey to was Orochimaru-sama's magnificent way of thinking. I chose this path myself. But tell me, who are you anyway? We came here with the intention of killing Sasori, so this is quite the mishap."

At this Orochimaru decided to cut in. "Kabuto, I'll tell you about this little boy here afterwards. But first things first, why don't you call out those little mice hiding in the bush."

Yamato looked at Orochimaru for a second before he gave the three hiding teens the sign with his hand and they appeared a second later between Yamato and the enemies.

"So it's you again …" Kabuto said as he recognized some of the newcomers, namely Sakura and Naruto.

"Kukuku" Orochimaru chuckled as he too recognized Naruto and Sakura. "I've seen that face several times. I guess that means the Kyuubi boy is here to fight as well. In that case, perhaps I'll play around with the four of you a bit. I'll give you the pleasure of assessing which has gotten stronger, you or Sasuke-kun."

"Give Sasuke back!" Naruto said in a low voice. He could feel the anger rising in him at the sight of these two and he could also feel that the Kyuubi was already getting exited, seeing a way to receive some action.

"There is no giving back, Naruto-kun. Here let me explain it to you." Kabuto said sarcastically trying to get a rise out of the blonde. "Sasuke-kun came to us of his own free will. It's about time you got over it."

"Shut your mouth, four-eyes!!" Sakura yelled from besides Naruto. "You don't know a damned thing about Naruto's feelings! I've had enough of your cool attitude." Besides here Naruto took a quick glance at her thinking about her words_. 'But you don't know a damned thing about my feelings, too.'_

"If you want to know about Sasuke-kun, why don't you try forcing it out of me?" Orochimaru asked sarcastically. "If you can, that is …"

Naruto realized that Orochimaru was taunting him, trying to anger him so that he would attack, most likely while using the Kyuubi's chakra. Having realized that, Naruto took a deep breath and tried to stay as calm as possible in the situation, but he could still feel the anger in him and from that he could already guess that the Kyuubi was already seeing this as a new chance to get some action.

"Ah, you stayed calm." Orochimaru said surprise showing. "It seems like my stupid team mate was actually able to teach you something." Hearing Orochimaru mention Jiraiya Naruto couldn't resist and flinched. "Oh, did I hit a nerve?" the Snake Sanin said smiling. "Yes, I heard that the idiot died. I always knew he wasn't cut out to be a ninja."

As he heard Orochimaru speaking about his godfather like that, Naruto couldn't stay calm as the anger began to blind him. He launched himself forward Kyuubi's chakra already forming its cloak around him, leaving only an explosion of dust behind. He hit Orochimaru head on his jaw with his fist, sending the treacherous Sanin flying off the bridge and deep into the forest.

As the cloud of dust cleared his team mates stared at him in wonder. "Naruto-kun, I see you've developed very nicely as a Jinchuriki." Kabuto said with a smile knowing his master wouldn't be defeated by a single strike of that calibre.

It took only a few moments until Orochimaru himself stepped out of the forest again and then the Sanin stepped back on the bridge, half of his face-mask torn off. "My oh my. You sure have become quite the Jinchuriki, Naruto-kun."

"And that explains why you were chosen to watch over him. It would appear my experiments were of some help after all. I should think Konoha would be a bit more appreciative." Orochimaru continued looking at Yamato. "Wouldn't you agree dearest guinea pig of mine?"

"Guinea pig?" Kabuto cut in before anyone else could open their mouth. "Just who is this person?"

"Well, you see the First Hokage was a shinobi possessing the most unique of abilities: his Mokuton ninjutsu." Orochimaru said as he covered his face with a new mask. "And what's even, he was able to bend Bijuu to his won will. Oh how I coveted those gifts of his."

"Having obtained data on the First's genome from his remains, I carried out an experiment in which his genetic traits were spliced into the cells of 60 different children, my test subjects." Orochimaru went on with his explanation. "But their bodies didn't seem to like the foreign DNA. They died one after another."

"And here I thought they'd all shared the same fate." He said as he looked straight at Yamato. "To think there was a lone survivor."

"Well then, it seems you'll be able to get your hands on what one might call a long overdue research sample." Kabuto said to his master.

"Yes, but before that, I would wish to see our Sasuke-kun fight the Kyuubi boy once." Orochimaru said directed at Naruto. "I wonder which has gotten stronger: my Sasuke-kun or my idiotic team mate's apprentice."

He was however cut off by Naruto, who let out a loud growl, as more tails began to form behind him. "Don't you dare talk about him like that in my presence!"

The violent chakra began to whip around him, wind beginning to spin and lashing out in every direction. To Orochimaru it seemed like the Kyuubi itself was standing in front of him for a second, growling at him as the pressure began to rise even further, as the bridge's railing was destroyed by the wind's pressure.

It didn't take long until Kabuto rushed forward, chakra formed around his hand as a weapon, but he was pushed back by an explosion of chakra coming from Naruto, sending the medic nin across the bridge and into a tree. The bridge itself was destroyed by the explosion of chakra, the middle of it, where Naruto was standing on all his four, was blown out of existence and the rest of the bridge was unable to support itself without the middle part.

To Naruto all that didn't matter as he only had eyes for his prey, Orochimaru, in his anger. Orochimaru leaped back into the forest avoiding a hand made of chakra by mere inches as Naruto persuaded him. Naruto didn't care for a thing as rage began to control him, as the Kyuubi tried to exploit this and once again tried to gain full control. Naruto, heavily influenced by the Kyuubi and not being able to think straight anymore, launched attack after attack at Orochimaru, destroying huge parts of the forest, as Orochimaru evaded them once and again.

"You're using the power of a Jinchuriki and that's all you have to show?" the snake Sanin asked in a mocking tone, as he dodged yet another attack. "You still have way to go to catch up to Sasuke-kun."

Naruto attacked again as an arm made of red chakra rushed forward. Orochimaru leaped away, but the arm changed its direction just as fast. Reacting instinctually the Sanin was able to evade the attack as it just nicked his arm, drawing a bit of blood much to the Sanin's annoyance. "But you don't care about that anymore, do you?" the Sanin asked, his voice this time not lanced with his mocking tone for once. "I've heard rumours after all, that it was you that killed my idiot of a team mate. Is it true?"

"**Kill"** A loud voice boomed inside his mind.

Growling in response Naruto launched another set of attacks, triggered by his fury they were also easy to dodge for an experienced fighter such as Orochimaru. "So it is." Orochimaru drawled out. "So I guess I gotta thank you." He said as he jumped to the ground, Naruto taking after him.

"**Kill"** The Kyuubi growled once again inside his mind.

Hearing the traitorous Sanin's words Naruto became even angrier and more of the Kyuubi's chakra began to pour out, beginning to form a fourth tail. As the tail began to form Naruto's skin began to burn from the demonic chakra, as it wasn't used to such quantities of it.

"Stop it." Naruto screamed inside his mind, as he appeared in a large room, illuminated by red light coming from behind the large cage and the chakra that was streaming out of the cage and surrounding Naruto. The source of the light was of course the chakra of the Kyuubi no Kitsune, as it pushed it through the cage and into Naruto's chakra coils, trying to take control.

"I said stop it!" Naruto said determined to get full control back and to force the Kyuubi back. But the Kyuubi didn't listen and pushed more chakra through the cage. Naruto leaped back as the chakra came nearer, not wanting it, knowing that he was nearing the point of losing his last bit of control. "Are you deaf, you dumb fox? I said stop it. I don't need your chakra!" Naruto growled out, trying to sound as intimidating and determined as possible.

A loud growl erupted from behind the bars of the cage and for the first time Naruto saw the demon's whole appearance, illuminated by the glowing red chakra**. "Don't make me laugh, flesh-bag. You are weak. You are pathetic!"** the Kyuubi growled out, its voice lanced with animalistic rage. **"Without me you are nothing."**

Repressing the urge to run away that was inspired by the demon's fury directed at him; Naruto stood still his eyes narrowing at the demon. "I don't need you!" Naruto said determined, as the red chakra, which was still streaming out of the cage, caught him and began to engulf him.

"**Let me show you what real power is."** The Kyuubi said as it growled dangerously once again.

Naruto felt the hot demonic chakra push into him, already beginning to destroy his chakra coils. His body felt like it was burning up from the inside, as the chakra circulated through his entire body, pain washing over his mind. Naruto recognized it instantly, as it was exactly the same pain he had felt that time. _'That time. Yes, it's exactly the same' _he thought and his thoughts witched to his dead sensei. _'"Never again will I lose control like that. Never again will the Kyuubi control my actions."'_ The vow he had made that day, over his sensei's dead body came to his mind, which only made his determination stronger and with all his might he pushed against the Kyuubi's chakra trying to force it back and out of his body.

Hearing a loud growl of fury, Naruto knew that he was succeeding, which was proved a moment later as the scene inside his mind began to fade away and reality returned as he once again saw the world through his own eyes, only to see next to nothing as a cloud of dust surrounded and engulfed him and the whole area.

On the outside more and more chakra had poured out of Naruto and began to swirl around him, as his skin was burned more and more. The chakra grew and grew until it finally stopped and was pushed away in a huge explosion, creating a huge crater, destroying the forest that had been there completely. In his position on the ground Orochimaru looked at the scene with amusement. "Honestly, this boy amuses me to no end" he whispered, the humour showing in his voice as he waited for the dust to clear.

In his position in the middle of the crater, Naruto could hear Orochimaru's whisper even through the sound of debris falling on the ground. He knew that he needed to do something if he wanted to win this fight. Gathering chakra, mostly the remains of the Kyuubi's massive chakra still inside his coils, Naruto slammed his bloody hand on the ground. "Kuchiyose no jutsu." He said and a cloud of white smoke appeared in the slowly settling cloud of dust.

As the cloud of smoke and dust finally settled completely Naruto stood completely still gathering natural energy to enter the sage mode. Behind him were four human-sized toads, back to back with only a small distance between them, forming a defensive ring around four Naruto clones. The clones looked like they were meditating, but they like the real Naruto were gathering natural energy.

In front of Naruto stood a single toad, which was bigger than the ones behind him. It wore samurai armour and had two swords strapped to its back. Looking back at Naruto the toad understood and drew his two swords, before it sprung forward. Cursing silently Orochimaru simply sprung to the side dodging the toad.

Biting his thumb, the Sanin let a drop of blood fall on his summoning seal and instantly a huge snake appeared and attacked the big toad. Not waiting Orochimaru rushed forward towards Naruto, while his snake was impaled by two swords and disappeared in a cloud of smoke. The toad saw Orochimaru rushing at the still natural energy gathering Naruto and jumped in the Sanin's way, its sword impaling the ground just inches in front of the Sanin.

Rushing through hand seal the Sanin attacked again. "Fuuton: Daitoppa" the Sanin said and blew out his breath creating a huge storm. The wind hit the toad head on and it was pushed back even though it was heavy as hell. Having taken the whole force of the attack, the toad was forced to dispel, but it had shielded Naruto and the other toads from the whole force of the attack.

Opening his eyes, Naruto looked at the traitorous Snake Sanin with his now yellow eyes, ready to begin the battle, now with a clear head and in full control. Thanking the toad silently that had bought him the time he had needed Naruto readied himself.

Not knowing what to make of this new development in the young blonde shinobi, Orochimaru lowered his head down to the ground and snakes began to slitter out of the Sanin's mouth. A lot of snakes.

Naruto saw a huge wall of small snakes making their way in his direction and dashed forward, a huge Rasengan forming in his right hand. As he reached the wall of attacking snakes Naruto thrust the huge Rasengan forward tearing through the snakes like butter, not bothering for the snakes on his left or right, he made his way directly for the Sanin, as two kage bunshin appeared behind him each with a huge Rasengan in a hand as they obliterated the rest of the snakes.

Covering the short distance in a moment Naruto knocked a normal Rasengan in the Sanin's head, shreddering it, remains spraying in every direction only to turn into mud. Growling Naruto reached out with his senses finding the Sanin not much away underground. With a short look back Naruto dispelled his two clones seeing them done with the snakes and instantly felt their remaining natural chakra entering his system giving him another few seconds to use the sage mode.

Reaching the spot where he sensed the Sanin Naruto used all his now through sage mode enhanced strength and brought his fist down, shattering the ground much like Tsunade always did, much to the surprise of the Snake Sanin hiding underground. Leaping away from the destructive blow the Sanin was once again surprised to find a Naruto standing in his escape way. Growling under his breath for underestimating his opponent, Orochimaru hammered his fist into the clone's head, destroying it.

Seeing the real Naruto still standing where he had shattered the ground, Orochimaru reached his hand in that direction and snakes began to fly towards the young Konoha shinobi. Reacting just in time Naruto gathered the chakra for a Rasengan in his hand, spinning the chakra around just as the snakes reached him shreddering their heads, along with most of their upper bodies, before they dropped dead to the ground between him and the Snake Sanin.

Feeling the last of the natural energy dissipate, leaving his body as he moved, Naruto winced as the pain of his burned off skin reached his brain. Giving the Snake Sanin a quick look with his now blue eyes, Naruto dispelled one of his clones which were still gathering natural energy and immediately felt the chakra enter his system, washing the pain away as his strength returned.

Leaping forward intending to finish the fight as fast as possible, as Naruto knew it was only a matter of time until the Sanin saw through all of it and went after his clones, destroying even the smallest chance for Naruto to fight on even ground with the Sanin. As he reached the Sanin Naruto tired to punch him, but this time the Sanin had been prepared and dodged to the side, deep in thought trying to figure out how the clone's dispelling and Naruto's power boost were tied together.

Growling in anger when he found out what the blonde was doing with the clones, knowing their effect only to well, the Sanin was still not sure where all that power came from as he couldn't feel any difference in the blonde, but it had to be there seeing the blonde fight like that and his change of appearance. Coming up with a quick plan the Sanin sent a lot of his snakes out of his sleeve and at the blonde, only to have him shredder them with another of his annoying Rasengan's.

Just as predicted the blonde dashed forward to attack the Sanin, hitting him with a Rasengan in the stomach shreddering the Sanin's innards. But before the body dropped dead to the ground like it should, it opened its mouth and a snake-like Orochimaru flew out of it and in the direction of the clones. Moving like a normal human again half way, Orochimaru ran at the nearest toad, which readied itself for the assault. Just as he was about to reach the first toad in his line of direction, Orochimaru smeared a bit of his blood over his summoning tattoo and gathered the necessary chakra. As he did so a large purple snake appeared out of nowhere and struck the first toad, nearly swallowing it fully.

Making use of it's momentum the snake made its way forward, destroying both kage bunshin's in its way before slamming with its full force into the toad at the end of the line. Using its tail, the snake hit the toad to its right, the only toad that was now without a clone to protect as Naruto had it already dispelled, just as the toad was about to ram its dagger into the snakes head. Hitting the toad with the last of its strength, the summoned snake disappeared in a cloud of smoke, taking its three preys with it.

Orochimaru having moved just behind the snake made his way to the last unmoving clone, but was intercepted by its guardian toad. Growling in anger his sword, the kusangi, appeared I his hand as it moved out of his sleeve and slammed it into the toad's head, full way in, up to the guard sending the toad back to where ever it came from.

As soon as Naruto realized what Orochimaru had done, he cursed under his breath and took after him as fast as he could but before he could catch up it was already too late and he felt two of his clones getting destroyed and their chakra entering his system, giving him another boost. Seeing Orochimaru going after his last clone, Naruto went through a couple of hand seals and slammed his hand on the ground.

Just as Orochimaru was about to impale the clone a long tongue wrapped itself around the kage bunshin and drew it back, so that the toad, where the tongue had come from, took the clone in its mouth. Naruto, glad that his plan worked nodded towards the toad which began to shrink and jump away, trying to reach the forest as it meant safety.

Orochimaru acting fast threw his sword and impaled the toad in mid-jump, destroying it along with the clone hidden inside of it.

Feeling another small boost of natural energy enter him and having Orochimaru at a disadvantage with his sword not in his reach, Naruto blindly dashed forward, forcing the Sanin in an exchange of blows with the help of a few well used clones.

Using a few clones as distraction Naruto powered a Rasengan up, intending to finish this fight once and for all. Reaching the Sanin Naruto pushed the Rasengan forward, trying to hit Orochimaru's chest. Just as Naruto thrusted his Rasengan forward a single snake slithered down Orochimaru's arm and transformed back into the kusagi upon reaching the Sanin's hand. Just as Naruto's Rasengan hit the first layer of skin, Orochimaru brought his hand forward impaling the blonde haired teen straight through his chest.

Gritting his teeth from the pain in his nicked chest, Orochimaru brought his unoccupied arm with all his might forward and punched Naruto straight in his disbelieving face, sending him backwards with the kusagi still sticking inside his chest and into a tree of the surrounding forest. Hitting the tree with a breaking sound as the tree trunk splintered, Naruto slowly slid to the ground, unmoving.

In the destroyed area of their battlefield Orochimaru dropped to his knees and opened his mouth, another fully healed Orochimaru making his way out. As he was about to follow the young Konoha shinobi, he felt pain erupt inside of him as the full effect of his body's reaction of trying to fight against his soul hit him. _'Patience … patience, Sasuke-kun awaits!_' he thought as he fought against the pain having given up the thought of following the blonde shinobi.

Yamato's wood clone reached Naruto's unmoving body, just as a single snake slithered off the blonde's body and back to his master. Quickly doing a first medical check Yamato realized that Naruto was in a critical condition and would most likely not survive if not treated immediately. Taking a quick glance at Orochimaru and the now approaching Sai, Yamato took Naruto as gently as possible and made his way back to the bridge were Sakura could help him.

"Sakura-san. He needs first-aid, quickly" the wood clone said as soon as he reached the real Yamato and Sakura standing on the side of the destroyed bridge. Setting Naruto gently to the ground, Sakura began to work immediately, doing a quick check on her own realizing the real danger Naruto was in instantly. Working on her team mate with her full concentration, Sakura didn't even notice the wood clone leaving again.

Yamato looked at Sakura working, just barely able to follow what she was doing as medical jutsu weren't his strong point. She was removing poison, not even bothering to heal all the bad burns on Naruto's skin yet. Only then Yamato really realized how close the young teen was to dieing, even if he had gotten a message of his clone's first check, which hadn't sounded nearly as bad as it looked now.

Yet, as he watched Sakura working, now moving to close the chest wound, he wondered how the blonde had managed to last that long against Orochimaru. Of course Naruto had used the Kyuubi's chakra in the beginning, but then suddenly he felt it vanish, leaving only traces in the air behind. From then on he had only been able to sense Naruto using normal chakra. But from his clone's reports Naruto had been nearly on par with the Sanin for a while, even if he had been dangerously wounded at the end, it was still impressing. He had watched the spars they had on their way here as close as possible and with that information he came to the conclusion that Naruto must have been hiding a lot of his true strength.

Receiving a new report from his clone, telling that Orochimaru had left with Kabuto and with Sai, Yamato thought about the coming time, trying to figure out what to do.

Cutting his thoughts close as he saw Sakura look up at him, sweat running down her face, obviously exhausted he saw her looking more than worried. "Yamato-taichou, we have to go back immediately. I can't heal everything and there are still traces of poison inside of him, which I can't remove at the moment." Sakura said in an exhausted and worried voice.

Realizing that what he had feared came through, Yamato was about to speak when another voice cut in.

"No" Naruto whispered from his spot on the ground, his voice weak as his whole body ached from the pain he felt. "Don't worry about me. I will be good to go in a second."

"Don't be dumb, Naruto" Sakura said to him, her strong medical side showing. "You are in no condition to move and even if you were there is still poison in your system."

"It will take care of it" Naruto said trying to sound confident even with his weak voice, even if he didn't feel confident about that fact at all. As soon as his words left his mouth, he saw understanding flash over Yamato's face and Sakura looked like she knew what he meant, too, a second later. _'Of course, she must have looked through some files as baa-chan's apprentice._' He realized after a second of confusion about her understanding.

"What are you doing, lay back down!" Sakura yelled as she moved to force the blonde back down, but was stopped when Yamato held her and spoke up before she could continue her medical rant.

"If you think so then I will let you come with us, but if you aren't up to it" Yamato said fully focused on Naruto who struggled to his feet, wincing from the pain. As he did so he gathered a tiny bit of demonic chakra and let it circulate through his body and immediately regretted it as his chakra coils felt like they were on fire as soon as the demonic chakra entered them. '_Damn, I guess I will have to wait a while before I can use any of the Kyuubi's chakra to heal my wounds.'_ He thought. "We'll leave you behind. You should have enough strength to get back to the village on your own."

As she heard it Sakura looked at her taichou totally surprised. "Kakashi-sensei would never …" she began to yell, but was cut off by Yamato.

"I was teamed up with Kakashi in the ANBU. I'm well aware of how he is." Yamato said even as he saw Naruto nod in understanding of what he had said earlier. "It's true I'm filling in for him, but we're different, he and I. I'll pass on saying "I won't let you guys get hurt!" with a smile. You're no longer apprentice ninja to be protected. You're shinobi who'll sooner or later have to surpass Kakashi and sustain Konoha on your shoulders."

He paused for a few seconds before he continued. "If we didn't follow now, we're not catching Orochimaru again. We hesitate now and it's over. With Orochimaru there are no second chances."

Naruto fully understood what Yamato wanted to say, but there was no chance in hell he would back out now and return to the village, even if he was hurt. Drawing in a bit of natural energy to numb the pain, but not enough to enter the sage mode, Naruto stretched his muscles slowly before he stood straight up. "Well, what are we waiting for?" he asked, his voice full of determination again.

"You are in no condition to move!" Sakura exclaimed, but Naruto was already moving, going through some stretches while standing.

"See." He simply said to Sakura as he continued to stretch, ignoring the pain that remained even through the natural energy that was numbing it. Also ignoring Sakura's glare, as she didn't believe what she was seeing, having learned different during her medical education.

Smiling at the blonde Yamato looked at Sakura, who had stood up, too, still obviously exhausted. "Follow me" he said as he slowly walked through the remaining forest towards the totally destroyed are of the fight earlier. Sakura looked at the scene totally surprised, never having seen such destruction before, while Naruto looked on calmly, already having seen it earlier in his fight, after he had full control back.

As they stepped nearer Naruto saw Sai's things laying on the ground, next to a puddle of ink. Obviously his team mate had some dealings with the traitorous Sanin; Naruto realized gritting his teeth at the realization.

"Sai's things are scattered on the ground" Sakura said as she bent down and picked Sai's drawing book up.

"He dropped those things and left with them there. That's all. I guess even he couldn't keep his cool standing before Orochimaru" Yamato said calmly.

"You know what happened, right?" Sakura asked her taichou.

"A Moku Bunshin of mine was here most of the time." Yamato said as his eyes flicked slowly to Naruto. "We'd been communicating through a radio transmitter I hid in here." He continued pointing at his specialised hita-ate. "From when my clone returned they talked for a short time, before Sai followed them. I haven't been able to understand their conversation. But he handed Orochimaru something. It was almost as if he was trying to get on Orochimaru's good graces."

"Yamato-taichou, this Danzo person … " Sakura began but trailed off, remembering what Tsunade had said to her before the mission.

"I know him." Yamato said, as his tone darkened slightly. "The hawkish leader, who stood in opposition to the Sandaime Hokage."

"Who is he?" Naruto cut in, not having heard that name ever before.

"Sai's superior." Sakura answered him. "An old geezer who thought poorly of the Third's ideals."

"It's quite possible Danzo's relying on Sai to set plans of his own into motion." Yamato said thinking hard about the whole situation. "Perhaps Danzo entrusted Sai with a top secret mission, that has nothing to do with our own."

Complete silence settled between them and was only broken by a bird screeching far away. "What I'm about to tell you is no more than conjecture upon conjecture, but it's not out of the realm of possibility. So brace yourselves." Yamato said breaking the silence, before pausing for the effect. "Danzo could well be intending to destroy Konoha as we know it."

Gritting his teeth in anger as he heard this, Naruto was more determined to continue with this mission than ever. There was no chance he would let these wounds get in his way, when Konoha might be in serious danger.

There was no way he would let that happen; no way that that old geezer would destroy Konoha, if he could prevent it_. 'I will save Konoha, no matter what.'_ Naruto swore to himself, more determined than ever.

* * *

**End Of Chapter**

* * *

**Author's Note (A/N):**

**Well there you have it, as I promised a lot faster than the last update. But now my holidays are over, so I don't have as much free time now, so the next update will once again take longer. Also I decided to plan ahead until the fight against Pein, before I will begin to write the next chapter, so it might take even longer.**

**As for this chapter: The first scene, I'm sure you all figured out what I wanted to say with it. First that his interest in Sakura isn't really there anymore (A/N: Finally) and of course that he is a normal teenager with reading Jiraiya's books. **

**I hope you all liked my version of the fight Naruto vs Orochimaru. I wanted him to use the Kyuubi's chakra, because he had to stand just inches away from losing control another time, to really take his vow serious. (That's my opinion at least.) As you can see he didn't lose control fully, as he got it back before he got the fourth tail, but even then he was so near to losing control that from now on he will take his vow more serious. **

**As for his strength level: In my opinion is the sage mode just a boost of his normal abilities, so even if he is Kage level in terms of power through the sage mode he still doesn't stand a chance against a Kage level enemy. I hope you all saw that he only really had a chance while Orochimaru was underestimating him and Naruto' trick with the Kage Bunshin was seen through very quickly, as expected of a genius like Orochimaru. **

**Now I hope you all saw what I meant to tell you at the end of the fight: Naruto sees the snake, but doesn't think anything of it, which is his downfall at the end. At the end he underestimated Orochimaru and thought that the Sanin didn't have a trick up his sleeve, which he paid in blood.**

**Well enough said about this chapter, I hope you all liked it and don't forget to leave a review if you did.**

**

* * *

  
**

**Now on to the poll on my profile I told you about on the last chapter.**

**At the moment most of you want him to get a toad mask, followed closely by the fox mask. But I have also got a few of you who want him to take another mask. I'm not sure what mask I will give him eventually and the final poll result won't be it for sure. Some of you have sent me some nice ideas (and I thank you for that) and I myself have some other ideas aswell, so you will just have to wait and continue to read the story to see what mask he will get.**

**If I end up deciding to not use some of the other ideas, I will use the poll winner, so please continue to vote.**

**

* * *

  
**

**The next chapter as I'm sure you all can guess will be the infiltration of Orochimaru's base and as such the encounter with Sasuke.**


	7. Chapter 7: Dealing With Traitors

* * *

**Disclaimer**:I don't own Naruto.

* * *

**Legend: **

"Naruto" - talking

'_Parents'_ - thinking

_Flashback_ – Flashbacks

"**Kit"** – Kyuubi talking

'_**Naruto'**_ – Kyuubi thinking

* * *

**Chapter 7: Dealing with traitors**

Settling down silently, with his back against a tree, his eyes closed, Naruto was in deep thought.

They had made the way in good time, following Orochimaru, Kabuto and Sai without any problems, if one didn't count a fake corpse left behind to slow them down. Orochimaru had already reached his hidden base and the Konoha team was only about half an hour away when they had stopped, while the terrain still gave them a bit of safety. From Yamato's information the terrain would change to rocky and mostly open, without any real hiding places, so they had decided to stop here and rest, to wait for the cover darkness provided for them, to infiltrate the base of the traitorous Sanin.

Naruto had left Sakura and Yamato, back at their quickly made camp to have a bit time for himself, alone and able to think in silence.

At the beginning as he had settled down with his back against the tree his thoughts had been on the mission, thinking about what was ahead of him, loitering in Orochimaru's hidden base. It wouldn't be easy as Orochimaru was there, along with Kabuto and most likely a lot of other enemies, following Orochimaru's command. Then there was also the factor of Sai and his secret mission from Danzo. Did he really betray Konoha or was it just a ploy to get near Orochimaru for whatever purpose he may have? Naruto had asked himself that a few times already, but he couldn't come to a conclusion as he realized that he nearly didn't know anything about Sai at all.

Then there was also Sasuke. His long lost team mate he had promised to get back to Konoha a few years ago. Now finally he did have another chance to do so, but curiously Naruto's desire to return what had once been his best friend, wasn't as strong as he would have thought it to be. _'Why should I bring a traitor who doesn't want to go back, back?'_ he asked himself, not knowing what he should think. Blaming it on all the things that happened and the pain that he still was in, his thoughts didn't linger on that for long, before they continued to the next theme of interest.

No, he didn't think about it for long as his thoughts went back to the battle he had fought earlier, his head dropping in shame. While it had been more than a bit positive that he had been able to fight nearly on par with Orochimaru for a bit while in sage mode, Naruto realized that he had made several fatal mistakes.

His only way to stay in sage mode for longer periods of time just wasn't good enough yet, to fight on such a level. Orochimaru had almost instantly seen through his trick of using the clones and went after them. All the Sanin would have needed to easily win the fight was to draw it out a bit more and Naruto would have been nearly defenseless. It would have taken him too long to gather the natural energy himself and clones wouldn't have helped as Orochimaru had already seen through that trick. So all in all Naruto realized that he had to come up with a better way, or at last an improved version really quickly, if he wanted to stay alive with Akatsuki hot on his heels.

And another thing that bugged him was the end of the fight. He had seen the snake move along the snake Sanin's arm, but hasn't treated as threat which had lead to his defeat and almost to his death. How could he have been so dumb as to underestimate the skills of a Sanin? He could beat himself thinking about that childish and dumb mistake, even now.

And because of that he had once again needed the help of the Kyuubi no Kitsune to neutralize all the remains of the poison, which had still been in his body after Sakura's emergency treatment.

But what bothered him even more than all of those things, was the beginning of the fight. _'I couldn't even keep my promise longer than a month'_ Naruto thought darkly, angry at himself and ashamed by his actions.

While he realized that he hadn't lost full control, by regaining control in the very last second, he still considered it to be a broken promise. He had lost so much of his control that he had only wanted to kill Orochimaru, not caring for anything else around him. He would have hurt one of his team mate's to kill the traitorous Sanin, or maybe even worse.

'"_**Kill**__"'_

He could still hear that voice in his mind even now, as it replayed over and over again. It terrified him that he had lost control as easily as that, but still maintaining enough to remember his actions and somewhat direct his actions, but not in general. Only his drive to go after Orochimaru had remained of his control and not much more.

'"Kill"'

That voice had plagued him since then, forcing Naruto to remember Jiraiya's dieing form, wondering if the voice had commanded him back then too. The voice also remembered him of his almost broken promise, making his determination to live up to the promise only stronger.

But as he sat there, head dropped in shame and eyes closed, Jiraiya appeared in front of his eyes. _'"You know, you will never be able to control the nine tails like that. It is a part of you, even if it's separated from you at the same time. There will be a time when you have to accept that, Naruto."' _Jiraiya's words replayed in his mind.

Yes, he remembered it clearly now. It had been while trying to control the demon's chakra when Jiraiya had said that. It hadn't made much sense to him then, but now he finally began to understand his sensei's words. _'Better late, than never' _he thought with a smile as he opened his eyes and was surprised to see that dusk had already began to settle. He would have to return to their camp soon.

'_Finally, I begin to understand, Ero-Sennin.'_ He thought as he stood up. _'Yes, finally I understand what you wanted me to understand back then. But that doesn't mean I will break my promise to you again. Today was as near to breaking it, than it will never be again. No matter what, I won't lose control even to this extent again.'_

Stretching his arms and legs, Naruto turned his head towards the sky, the first stars already appearing. '_I will grow stronger and I will make you proud, no matter what.'_ He thought with as much determination as he could, his pain mostly forgotten as he began to make his way back to his two team mate's.

* * *

"Here, huh?" Yamato asked his clone as they hid behind one of the larger rocks in the area, looking at the area Orochimaru's hidden base was supposedly hidden.

"The entrance is right below that rock formation in front of us." The wood clone answered.

"Under those rocks" Naruto muttered under his breath, just loud enough that his team mate's would hear it. "Sasuke is waiting."

"Yeah." Sakura said determined to get Sasuke back to Konoha.

Closing his eyes to focus himself, Naruto drew a final amount of natural energy into his system, numbing the pain he still felt for the last time, seeing as he couldn't do it if they started to move. "Ok, let's go then." He said after finishing the process, knowing that he would have to ignore the pain from now on.

"Hold on a second" Yamato said stopping Naruto with his hand, just as the teen was about to move. The other hand he put on the wood clone's back, which soon after began to change forms, until only a small, pill-like something remained in the now flat hand. "You can go after you've swallowed this, Naruto. And here one for you too, Sakura." Yamato said, his other hand containing another of those pills, moving the hand in Sakura's direction. "Even if we end up getting separated with those inside you, I'll be able to locate you immediately."

"What is this?" Sakura asked as she examined her pill closely.

"To put things simply, those seeds are tracking devices. They're a tool of mine that responds only to my chakra." Yamato explained to his two young team mate's. "Those are just the same as the ones that I planted in Sai's clothes and food."

"I see" Sakura said figuring out how Yamato had known the direction they had to go without even the slightest of a problem. "So this is how you were able to track him."

"When did you manage to …" Naruto began to ask, but trailed off as he figured it out.

"Don't you remember?" Yamato said explaining it to Naruto, even though the young blonde had just figured it out. "You know, how I went back to the room before the two of you at the hot springs. Now you two should understand why I went out of my way, using my own money to treat everyone to such a lavish stay at that hot springs resort."

'_Of course'_ Naruto thought as he thought back to that time in the hot springs. Back then he hadn't thought much of it, thinking that Yamato just wanted them to relax a last time before their important mission, but now it actually made more sense.

"Everything was just like Tsunade-sama said. Taking precautions with Sai sure has paid off in the end." Yamato went on.

"Anyhow enough talk. Swallow those now, please" he commanded them, turning serious once again, as his whole attention returned to the task at hand.

"We'll conduct the infiltration in file: me first, then Sakura and Naruto at the rear" Yamato told them already having thought about everything beforehand.

"What's our method of infiltration?" Sakura asked curiously.

"We're taking this by the book, so we'll use a doton technique to approach from within the ground." Yamato answered her, already gathering the necessary chakra for such a doton technique.

* * *

"We'll look for Sai first" Yamato said as they moved through the dimly lit corridors of Orochimaru's base, always holding their formation. The infiltration with the doton technique went of without a hitch, only a small wall of rock standing in their way. But even that Problem was simply taken care of by Yamato, as he used his wood to break through it as silent as possible.

"This way" he said as they began to move through the dark corridors, always caution that nobody saw or even heard them.

"Just a little further" Yamato said after a while of moving through the corridors, making his way towards a single closed door.

As they reached the door Naruto used his awareness of the nature to reach out with his senses, trying to sense everything on the other side of the door. It was a simple room he sensed with only one occupant, Sai, he realized already knowing what Sai felt like in the nature from their short time as team mates.

Yamato's and slowly morphed into a key, with which he easily unlocked the closed door and then he proceeded to open the door. "And look who we have here" he said as they entered the room, much to Sai's surprise, which he naturally hid like he had learned to do with all of his emotions.

"The Hokage controlled ANBU, impressive as always. To think that fake corpse wouldn't fool you" Sai said, a fake smile on his face.

"Why don't you tell us about what's going on here" Yamato said calmly as his finger morphed back to normal, the wooden key that had just unlocked the door vanishing as the wood withdrew back into Yamato's hand.

After stepping fully through the door and hearing Yamato's words Naruto moved. His hand instantly on Sai's throat, he pushed the root member back against the wall lifting him up so that his feet staggered in the air, finding no ground beneath them. "You" Naruto whispered in Sai's ear. "Why did you betray us?"

"Naruto!" Sakura said loudly shocked at her team mate's behavior.

But Naruto didn't care, as he continued to hold Sai in the air giving him no chance to breathe. "You're here under Danzo's orders, right? What is that old geezer planning?" he asked his voice filled with venom. As he looked directly into Sai's dark eyes Naruto tried to read the teens emotions into them. The root member was scared, even though he didn't show it openly.

Finally letting Sai down thinking that this was enough for now, Naruto lowered his hand, completely removing it after Sai once again stood on his own feets, as he still waited for an answer. "He's plotting the destruction of Konoha with Orochimaru, right?" Naruto continued to question the cornered root member, after a few seconds of silence in which he let the root member take a few breaths, as he was finally able to breathe again.

"No, actually …" Sai began after a few moments having regained his breath fully, but was cut off by Naruto.

"We already know that all your smiles are fake, so drop them" Naruto said somewhat angry, as Sai had slipped one of his smiles on his face while answering.

"My mission ended in failure the moment you found me" Sai began, this time without a fake smile on his face. "And I'm not going to be able to take care of the three of you by myself, so since you already know so much, three isn't much reason to hide things anymore. Just as you say, we are going to destroy Konoha as it exists today."

Naruto could feel his anger rising as he heard Sai's words, having trouble to restrain himself and keep himself from hurting the traitorous shinobi. "In order to destroy Konoha" Sai continued with his explanation. "I was to gain Orochimaru's favor, thus giving us a chance to ally with him. That was my true mission."

Having heard enough Naruto pushed Sai against the wall with his left arm a kunai already appearing in his other, which he moved at the root member's throat. "Do you even realize what you're saying?" Naruto whispered venomously. "I should kill you now, as a traitor to Konoha." As he said this he pushed the kunai forward by a few millimeters, drawing blood, ignoring the gasp from behind him.

"That's not all …" Sai said from his position forced against the wall and Naruto took the kunai back a bit, giving Sai a bit of room. "I was also supposed to secretly transmit information on Orochimaru to Danzo-sama. In other words I was also assigned a mission of espionage."

"Once Konoha falls" Sai continued after a short pause. "Orochimaru is guaranteed to betray us in the end, after all. My mission was intended to allow us to always stay one step ahead of him. I was singled out due to the special abilities I have. Information that I write in ink morphs into what are like small animals and protecting themselves from harm, they carry the information out to their destination."

Actually having to restrain himself really hard, Naruto remained silent, as he realized that he couldn't harm Sai, as the root member could still proof to be useful. At the very least they could get more information out of him, even though Naruto somehow doubted that the emotionless root member would give it to them willingly or even while being forced. But no matter what, Naruto felt that something wasn't right about all of this.

"If Konoha becomes the stage of battle again, countless people will die!" Sakura spoke from behind him, her voice louder than it should be during such an infiltration. "What you're trying to do is going to have very real consequences, but do you even understand that?"

"I don't really care" Sai answered her trying to sound as uncaring as possible. "I just follow my orders."

"Sai, you're …" Sakura began but was cut off.

"Just to let you know" Sai cut her off, before she could finish her sentence. "'Sai' is a name that was assigned to me merely for the purpose of this mission. In reality I'm nobody. I am nothing more than a tool of Danzo-sama. I don't really exist. As such, no matter what you say to me, it means nothing."

As Naruto heard that his thoughts went back to his first real mission as a ninja. _'"I am Zabuza-san's weapon" …"Zabuza has no need for a weak shinobi"_' the words echoed through his head. _'Haku'_ Naruto thought. _'He's just like Haku.'_

"In that case" Sakura said breaking him out of his thoughts. "Tell me why you care so much about that picture book in my hand." As she said this, she showed him that she was indeed holding his drawing book in her hand. Sai lowered his head a bit, but Sakura didn't stop. "The two children on the covers, that's you and your brother, right? You carry that because it is the only thing left that proves you really exist, am I not right? You have yet to truly get rid of your emotions, despite what you say. Even for us shinobi, abandoning our emotions completely is impossible."

"Please explain, why would carrying this picture book server to prove my existence?" Sai questioned her logic.

"The reason why you refuse to let go of that book, is precisely because you find yourself unable to forget your existence as someone's brother." Sakura explained. "Do you understand why?" Sakura asked and paused, but didn't see anything that indicated that he would answer her question. "It's because your bonds with your brother are that important to you. The reality is you don't want to erase the bonds that formed between you and your brother."

"Bonds?" Sai questioned confused.

"Sorry to say, but we took a little peak at the contents of that book." Yamato said as Naruto withdrew his kunai fully and moved back a step. "That picture on the two pages in the centre is the only part of the book left unfinished. Judging from the rest of the book, you would end up fighting your brother on those center pages. Sai, I know you were a part of ANBU's roots. And I know that Danzo has given you special training in order to relieve you of your emotions. Training identical to that forsaken tradition, that was once practical in the village of the bloody mist, Kirigakure."

"Sai, your brother was killed by none other than …" Yamato began but was interrupted.

"You're wrong!" Sai cut Yamato off. "I had intended to give this to my brother as a present, but just when I was about to complete it, my brother died of illness. We weren't connected by blood, but he did compliment me on my drawing quite a bit. 'Root' was filled with a great number of children that had been separated from their families due to battles. And of those children I became close to one, calling him my brother. Of this picture book, the picture I wanted to show my brother the most, the one in the center, after my brother died I just can't seem to remember what I was planning on drawing."

Naruto looked at his 'traitorous' team mate somatically, understanding how Sai must have felt, from his own experiences in his early life. Of course he also understood that most of those children must have become orphans due to the attack of the Kyuubi no Kitsune that was sealed inside of him. But before he could think about it longer, he picked something up and immediately reached out to the nature with his senses, proving his hunch to be right.

"Quick, someone is coming" he warned his team mates and they began to retreat, taking Sai with them. Just as he was walking towards the door, Naruto saw a formal envelope lying on the desk. Walking towards the desk he picked it up, before he exited the room through the door, which Yamato locked up again, by transforming his finger once more into the key from earlier.

* * *

On the outside once again, hidden by one of the larger rock formations, the Konoha team was standing, while Sai, restrained by wood, was sitting with his back against the hard rock. "Unfortunately, Sai, we're going to have to leave you here with my bunshin watching you" Yamato said to their 'prisoner', who remained silent.

"Now, to get back to what we came here for" Naruto said, trying to sound determined even if he truly wasn't. He didn't know why but somehow his determination to get Sasuke back to Konoha has weakened in the last few days and weeks.

"It's time to rescue Sasuke." Sakura said more determined than Naruto remembered ever seeing her.

"It'd be better if you gave up now." Sai said, sounding somewhat sad, if that was even possible for the emotionless root member. "I met with Sasuke-kun. Orochimaru is going to be with Sasuke-kun the whole time. If you continue to go after him, the best you'll manage is to be torn to pieces and turned into guinea pigs. Besides, Sasuke-kun said he doesn't even care about you anymore. Sakura-san said that you care for Sasuke-kun as though he was your own brother. And despite that do you really intend to go up against Orochimaru of all people, just for him you're going to put your life on the line to bring him back? But why? It's not like you've been ordered to do this."

"Way back, I used to hate Sasuke." Naruto answered, feeling compelled to do so. "He's the person that, more than anyone else, accepted me and my existence. Sasuke is my friend and he represents the bonds that I waited so long to receive. So that's why."

"Bonds" Sai whispered unbelieving. "Still, that's not much reason, not if it means facing someone like Orochimaru."

"I'm not scared of that hebi-teme." Naruto replied, trying to get the emotions, which he had felt only a month ago, across to the emotionless shinobi. "So even if it means getting torn to pieces, I'm going to take Sasuke back from Orochimaru, no matter what."

Silence hung over them after these words, until Yamato broke it after a few moments. "Once my clone's ready, we're going."

At that very moment Naruto felt someone's presence behind them and a split second later he could already hear the sound of kunais slicing through the air, as they were most likely thrown in their direction. Jumping away, followed by his two team mates, who had realized the threat, too, he avoided the kunai, which hit the ground in front of Sai where they had just been standing.

Just as Naruto came to a stop some distance away, Kabuto landed on the ground before Sai, in between the kunai that hit the exact same area only a few moments earlier. "Sai, judging from your situation, I suppose this means you were captured. Since it doesn't seem you've betrayed us, I'll trust you, for now." Kabuto said as he stood up from his landing position and moved towards Sai activating his chakra scalpel to cut through the wood binding Sai, freeing the traitorous Konoha shinobi.

Eying each other, they remained at their spots. "It's pointless." Kabuto said after a few moments of silence.

"What are you talking about?" Naruto questioned the medic-nin, trying to buy some time as he was already planning the best way to approach attacking him. _'A well placed distraction with a bunshin should be enough'_ he thought as he waited for an answer.

"Watching you makes me truly feel pity." Kabuto replied. "People change. Sasuke is no longer the Sasuke you used to know."

Hearing this Sai moved and grabbed Kabuto and placed him in a lock, leaving Orochimaru's aide unable to move and unable to get away. "What the …" Kabuto exclaimed in surprise before trailing off only continuing as he realized what happened. "What are you doing?"

"You say people change and here I am." Sai said quietly. "But there are also things that don't change."

"Sai what are …." Naruto began to ask, already over his surprise of Sai's actions. A few minutes ago he had been ready to kill Sai as a traitor and now the very same teen was helping them.

"Bonds." Sai responded cutting Naruto's question off. "I want to see what they're really made of."

"Sai." Sakura whispered letting her emotions show on her face.

"Sai, just keep him still like that." Yamato ordered already gathering the necessary chakra to bind Kabuto with the use of his wood techniques. After Kabuto was safely restrained Yamato quickly formed a single wood clone to watch over their new prisoner while they were infiltrating the base once again.

Naruto looked at Sai about to ask a question, but was cut off by Sai who had already guessed what Naruto wanted to know from his look. "Why is it you place so much value in the bonds between you and Sasuke-kun? What exactly are those bonds you speak of? I decided I need to know the answer to those questions myself." Sai said.

"According to the two of you, I've been unable to get rid of the bonds that formed between me and my brother. If those bonds are so important to me, then I might be able to figure something out if I see the 'bonds' between you and Sasuke-kun. That's all." Sai went on with his explanation.

"The four of you don't know the real Sasuke-kun." Kabuto cut into their conversation, chuckling openly as he talked and continued to laugh for a few moments.

"What's so funny?" Sakura asked her fellow medic-nin, annoyed by his words and laughter.

"Tell us where Sasuke is!" Yamato ordered Kabuto in a somewhat threatening way, not caring what the medic found so funny as he thought it irrelevant for the mission they had come here for.

"He should be done with his training about now and be back in his inner chamber." Kabuto told them honestly. "There are a large number of rooms strewn all throughout the lair. If you end up looking in each as you go, you might find him. Still, if you aren't careful, you might chance upon a snake as well. Orochimaru-sama keeps his quarters in the same area, after all."

"I thank you for being so honest." Yamato said to their prisoner not having expected to receive a reply to his question at all.

"Oh no, you really shouldn't be thanking me." Kabuto retorted.

"You expect us, the hunters to become the prey then" Yamato asked.

"Precisely." Kabuto replied with a smile.

"We will see." Yamato replied before moving away from the captured medic. "Let's go" he said to his team and a second later they moved out, leaving only a clone to watch over their prisoner.

They stopped in the dimly lit corridor of the base, having just entered the same way they had used earlier. "We'll split into two teams to search for Sasuke. Sakura and I will form one, Naruto and Sai the other." Yamato explained to them. "If something comes up, focus your chakra. That will be more than enough to produce a reaction in the seeds I have in your bodies. I'll be there for you at a moment's notice."

Nodding in reply they moved out, each team taking a different way.

Rounding around a corner, followed by another Naruto stopped and reached out with his senses, searching through his awareness of his surroundings if anybody happened to be nearby. Sensing no one Naruto turned around and grabbed Sai's clothes on his upper body and pushed him against the wall, much to the root member's surprise.

"I don't care what you just did up there." Naruto said quietly, his voice lanced with venom. "I don't trust you. You already chose to work against Konoha once, even though you were ordered. If you do so again, I will kill you."

Sai didn't look affected at all, until he spoke up. "Oh jeez. You two are so alike" he said, much to Naruto's surprise. "You any my brother, I mean. Just like you he took on everything he did with everything he had. Watching you brings back memories."

Naruto let a smile form on his lips as he stepped back, releasing Sai as he did so and turned around again, feeling that the root member was telling the truth. He hadn't been able to feel the slightest reaction in Sai's body, which was normal when somebody lied, not even with his senses, which had been sharpened by the natural energy he had gathered before reaching out with them. "Enough wasting time" he said and began to move away, continuing with the task at hand.

After a few steps however he realized that Sai wasn't following him. Turning around he saw Sai drawing In his drawing book, finishing the only unfinished page. "I remembered. I remembered what I was trying to …"

At this very moment Naruto moved, cutting Sai's sentence off and dragging the black haired teen inside the next room, closing the door behind them. "Conceal your presence" Naruto ordered, but it was already too late as the door was blown off its hinges, crashing to the ground.

As the dust settled and the door finally laid still on the ground, Orochimaru was standing where the door had been just moments ago and extended him right arm towards the two young shinobi. A split second and a quick "Senei Jashu" later, two large snakes began to move out of the Sanin's sleeve and flew towards them. Reacting quick Naruto moved and pushed Sai away, out of the first snake's way, but not a second later the second snake wrapped itself around the young root member, having altered its way in mid air, and drew the teen towards the snake Sanin.

"Well then Sai." Orochimaru's sick voice cut sweetly through the air. "Which side do you intend to take?" But even as he asked the young rot member that question, his snake was already wrapping itself tighter around the teen, cutting Sai's oxygen supply off.

Cursing under his breath Naruto stayed still, knowing that he had no chance against the Sanin in his current condition and began to draw the nature's chakra as quickly towards him as he could, hoping to be quick enough to safe his team mate, as drawing in the chakra proofed to be more difficult, seeing that he wasn't surrounded by much nature. Just as Orochimaru was already switching his glance on him, Naruto moved. However already having anticipated this Orochimaru moved to the side, evading Naruto's attack. But what he hadn't anticipated was a clone behind the real Naruto, which followed the Sanin's dodge and cut through the snake with a kunai, freeing Sai before jumping back.

Reacting quickly and out of anger, Orochimaru used another "Senei Jashu" and a snake rushed after them. The clone quickly pushed Sai towards the real Naruto, before it threw itself in the snake's way. The snake bit down, destroying the clone before it withdrew back into Orochimaru's sleeve.

"I'll deal with him." Naruto said to Sai, trusting the young root member, who was barely standing upright, drawing in a deep breath followed by another in order to recover from almost suffocating, seeing that his supply of oxygen had been cut off for such a long time. "You go and find Sasuke."

"Ok. I'll search and rescue Sasuke-kun." Sai finally said, and took off vanishing in the long and dark corridor split seconds later, leaving Naruto alone to face the Sanin until his other team mate's arrived as backup.

"You've come to rescue Sasuke, have you?" Orochimaru asked, obviously amused at the situation. "I'll hand it to you for your guts, but do you really think things will go as you want?"

"Yeah." Naruto said determined, even though he knew that he didn't have a chance against the Sanin right now. "I'll beat you and take Sasuke out of here!" Already gathering the necessary chakra, Naruto moved before the Sanin could do anything and slammed his hand on the ground. "Kuchiyose no jutsu!"

And in a cloud of smoke a large toad appeared barely fitting in the now rather small looking corridor, blocking Orochimaru from reaching Naruto. As he looked the toad, Naruto realized that he hadn't met this particular toad yet, even if he had spent a while with them, at which time he just hadn't been in the right state of mind to go and meet all the toads, nor able to learn and remember the names of the few he did meet. "Would you be so kind and assist me, Gama-san?" Naruto asked kindly as he began to gather more natural energy so that he could enter the sage mode.

"Hai" the toad replied simply readying itself for combat, a huge shield in its one hand protecting it from most attacks the snake Sanin could throw at it.

Orochimaru for his part stood calmly and merely extended his arm forward, as snakes began to slitter out of his sleeves. Blocking the snakes by moving the shield as much as possible in the small corridor, the snakes merely hit the shield with a dull sound. However the toad overlooked a single snake slithering on the ground and towards the toad right underneath the shield. Only a small distance away now from the toad the snake attacked and launched itself at the arm holding the shield, biting down on it.

Dropping the shield, the toad was unable to defend itself as another volley of snakes flew towards it, biting down on it in different places. Defeated the toad vanished in a cloud of smoke and the snakes began to withdraw back towards their master.

"So what, you're all talk now?" Orochimaru asked Naruto, who merely stood there doing nothing, glad for every second that passed.

Sensing something Naruto quickly stepped to the side, forced to stop gathering the natural energy, a kunai already appearing in his right hand. Moving quickly Naruto spun around and hit his attacker full on the chest, his kunai boring itself deep into his attacker's flesh, who dropped to the ground uneventful and slithered along it for a few meters from the momentum. As he looked down, Naruto saw what he guessed were horns retreating back into the person's body as the skin began to lighten at the same time. _'A cursed seal' _Naruto realized quickly as he turned towards Orochimaru and the now on the ground laying attacker, bringing his focus back on his main enemy, Orochimaru. Orochimaru merely smirked as he drew a single kunai and threw it at the downed person, indebting it deep in the man's head, killing the person instantly.

"Kukuku" the Sanin chuckled to himself.

Naruto having enough dashed forward, two clones besides him to force the Sanin to the defense, but the Sanin quickly made a cross through his planes as he destroyed both clones with a well places strike, before moving onto Naruto, hitting him in the stomach, sending Naruto back a few feet.

Naruto dropped to the ground, as the single strike brought back all the pain he had been numbing and trying to ignore all time long. His eyes cast at the ground, Naruto had to force himself as to not throw up, as he was exactly besides the person Orochimaru had killed only moments ago, blood and brain parts welling out of the wounds and mixing on the ground. It was only a boy, maybe a year older than him, Naruto realized as he was forced to look at the corpse.

Mobilizing all his willpower Naruto forced his body to stand upright, already having lost all focus on the natural energy, which had completely dissipated, leaving him powerless against the Sanin. Sighing relieved, Naruto sensed Yamato and Sakura rounding around the last corner stopping just behind him. "Orochimaru again, eh." Yamato observed as he came to a stop.

"I'll let you live Naruto-kun." Orochimaru said simply, not in the least impressed by the three opponents that were facing him. "The more Akatsuki member you can take out, the better. I'm more interested in dealing with Sai anyways, so excuse me." With that said the Sanin vanished right before their eyes with the help of an improved Sunshin no jutsu, leaving the corridor unoccupied expect for the Konoha shinobi.

"Where's Sai?" Yamato asked quickly after the Sanin had left.

"He's looking for Sasuke." Naruto informed them, as he once again numbed the pain as much as possible with the help of natural energy. "We've got to find him before Orochimaru." Stretching out his senses, Naruto searched for Sai's presence, finding it near another one. "Quick." Naruto said as he took off, ignoring the pain as much as possible, followed by his two team mates.

As they run through the corridors everything began to shake, small parts of debris falling down from the ceiling. "What was that?" Sakura asked somewhat frightened.

"It's Sai's chakra." Yamato replied, but Naruto already knew what exactly was happening as he had sensed everything perfectly. Running around the last corner they saw Sai standing in what seemed to be a mostly destroyed room, looking up at something or someone.

Losing no time Naruto dashed forward, already guessing what would expect him when he reached the newly created opening. "Sasuke." Naruto said as he stopped a few feet away from Sai, looking up at his completely changed once upon a time team mate.

"Naruto." Sasuke said simply, his voice carrying no emotions. "And now Sakura, so you came, too." He continued as he saw Sakura appearing behind Naruto, coming to a stop besides Naruto. "Does that mean Kakashi's here as well?"

At that very moment Yamato stepped into the teen's view. "Unfortunately Kakashi-san couldn't be here, but I'm here in his place." Yamato said to the Uchiha, observing him to get as much information on him as possible. "We, team Kakashi are going to be taking you back to Konoha."

"Team Kakashi, huh." Sasuke said simply, observing Sai. "So he's filling in for me then, is he? He was spouting some kind of nonsense about protecting the bonds between Naruto and me. One more pansy for the group, quite the fit I'm sure."

The Konoha shinobi looked at Sai with one eye, surprised by that revelation not having really believed the change in Sai to be real. Naruto for his part closely observed Sasuke as silence fell between them, nobody even muttering a single word.

Bored of waiting Sasuke moved and appeared next to Naruto, who hadn't moved an inch, one arm on Naruto's right shoulder. "Come to think of it, isn't becoming Hokage one of your dreams?" Sasuke asked, taunting the blond haired shinobi. "If you have the time to chase me around, you would have been better off training, don't you think Naruto? And that's why this time you're going to end up losing your life, all at a whim of mine."

Naruto remained motionless, even if Sasuke began to draw his sword, slowly sliding it out of it's sheath. "Like there's any chance someone who can't save a friend could become Hokage. Don't you think Sasuke?" However Sasuke merely grunted in reply.

Moving his sword to attack, Naruto had enough of it and moved, his left hand grabbing Sasuke's attacking arm, while his right hand moved to remove Sasuke's other hand from his shoulder. Free to move again as Sasuke's hand was removed from his shoulder, seeing as it had been holding him in place, Naruto brought his right hand forward intending to hit Sasuke straight in the face.

But Naruto's plan was baffled as Sasuke muttered two words. "Chidori Nagashi." With that lightning appeared all around Sasuke extending several feet away from him, hitting Naruto with full force and sent him flying backwards. Cursing as his body screamed in pain from the impact, Naruto quickly forced himself back to his feet.

In the mean time Sai dashed forward, but was interrupted by a simple swing of Sasuke's sword. Grabbing Sasuke's wrist to stop the attack, Sai made himself an easy target for Sasuke's new technique and he, too, was sent to the ground, lightning running through him.

Remembering her words from years ago, Sakura dashed forward. "Sasuke-kun, I'm going to stop you with my own power" she yelled as she rushed at the Uchiha.

Yamato seeing Sasuke channeling a chidori to his blade acted quickly and intercepted Sasuke, as he swung his sword against Sakura, only to be pierced in the shoulder by the teen's blade as it cut through his kunai like butter. Cursing his stupidity for not realizing the effect, which channeling a chidori through the blade would have, Yamato struggled as he felt the effect of the electricity in his body.

Seeing Sasuke standing in front of his taichou, with his sword in the man's shoulder Naruto acted. Throwing several kunai at Sasuke, Naruto forced his old team mate to back away from Yamato in order to dodge the thrown projectiles. Dashing forward Naruto tried to hit Sasuke, but the Uchiha easily dodged all of Naruto's attempts, seeing them coming with the use of his Sharingan.

Dodging another punch thrown at him by Naruto, Sasuke pushed his sword forward, intending to stab it straight into Naruto's chest. Reacting quickly as he didn't want another sword sticking in his chest so soon after the last, the blonde brought his free hand forward, a Rasengan forming to block the attack. As sword met Rasengan, the chidori empowered sword pierced through the Rasengan's outer layer, making it instable and causing it to explode, sending Naruto flying back violently.

Sasuke for his part was only forced back a few feet, his sword nearly winging out of his grip from the force of the explosion.

Seeing his chance Yamato used one of his jutsus, trying to capture Sasuke. But Sasuke easily cut a hole in the wooden cage that had formed around him and jumped out of what was supposed to be his prison. Landing on the top the Uchiha overlooked the Konoha shinobi which were standing a level beneath him.

"Why don't you get it?" Naruto muttered just loud enough that the others could hear it, as he felt his frustration grow. "Your body's going to be stolen by Orochimaru anytime now!" he continued, his voice growing in strength and loudness.

"If that happens, then it happens" the Uchiha merely replied, looking directly at Naruto. "Revenge means everything to me, as long as I can have my revenge, I could care less what happens to me, or the whole world for that matter. Let me make it clear for you. For both me and Orochimaru, right now, killing Itachi would be impossible. But if I'm able to accomplish my goals through nothing more than offering Orochimaru this body of mine, then he can have my life and my afterlife for that matter."

"That's enough talk." Yamato cut in, as he raised himself to stand upright, ignoring his wound to the shoulder. "Naruto and Sakura, with you two here I had hoped not to have to resort to any of my cruder methods. But unfortunately, it's time I get serious."

"Captain Yamato." Sakura exclaimed in surprise.

Naruto could already feel it. Yamato's stance changed and his chakra was growing, as he gathered it to be ready for anything. Yes, he could feel it, Yamato was getting serious. _'Maybe I should have been so, too.'_ Naruto thought as he observed the scene curiously.

"Konoha." Sasuke said. "I'm through with you. Now things end." With that said Sasuke made a quick hand sign before raising his left arm to the sky, obviously preparing to use a powerful jutsu.

"Now, now. There's no need to use that jutsu, Sasuke-kun." Orochimaru said, as he appeared besides the Uchiha grabbing the teen's wrist, forcing him to stop the preparation of the jutsu Sasuke wanted to use.

"Remove your hand!" Sasuke ordered the Sanin.

"There you go again." Kabuto said, sounding a bit berating, standing a bit away from the other two. "Forgetting exactly who you are talking to."

"I have no reason to stop." Sasuke merely replied, his voice free of any emotions.

"You know quiet well what Akatsuki is up to." Kabuto said to the young Uchiha. "We want to have our guests here from Konoha take care of as many of them as possible. Even just one would be fine. If the other Akatsuki member get in your way, your plans for revenge could hit a snag, right?"

"That's a pathetic excuse." Sasuke said.

"But surely, you'd allow it if it meant increasing the chances of your revenge succeeding, by even one percent, right?" Kabuto asked the Uchiha, who began to let his right hand sink down again, as the Sanin removed his grip on the teen's wrist.

"It's time we leave, my darlings." Orochimaru said to his two 'servants'.

Naruto realizing that time was running really short, closed his eyes concentrating fully on the natural energy he had been drawing to him as he listened to their talk. Opening his eyes a second later he was in sage mode, his eyes changed to the yellow toad eyes and outlined with the red marks of a true sage.

Just as his three opponents were about to activate their Shunshin no jutsus, concluding from the chakra he felt, Naruto jumped up, a huge Rasengan forming, intending to slam it into the snake Sanin. Orochimaru however easily dodged together with Sasuke as they jumped back a bit.

Before the cloud of dust, raised by the impact of the Rasengan on the ground, even settled, three Naruto clones formed and went after all three enemies, each with a normal Rasengan in hand. Orochimaru easily dodged the attack, twisting his body out of the attacks way, bringing his knee up, hitting the clone with full force in the stomach and as such destroyed it. Sasuke, too, easily managed to deal with it, destroying the clone with a chidori before it could even hit him, having seen the attack before hand with his Sharingan.

Kabuto however was barely able to jump away, avoiding the Rasengan by mere inches as he jumped towards the snake Sanin. The Naruto clone followed, but was destroyed by a punch in the face from the Sanin, before he could do anything.

Just as the cloud of smoke left behind by the destroyed clone dispersed, wood began to wind itself up the three enemies of Konoha, binding them to the place they stood at. Having had the cover of the dust cloud of the impact earlier and of Naruto's attacks, Yamato jumped up followed by the others, and Yamato acted quickly as he saw his chance and quickly caught their enemies.

But before he could do anything more than to hold them in place, Orochimaru, together with Sasuke and Kabuto, simply faded away, leaving the wood that had them trapped behind.

Naruto closed his eyes concentrating hard he could feel the three of them move away, already way ahead of them. Letting a deep breathe out, Naruto let all the natural energy sip away, as he knew that a pursuit would be futile. As he reached out again, he burned the presences of the three of them in his memory, so he would be able to find them more easily next time should he enter sage mode near to them.

Opening his eyes Naruto looked at the nearly cloud free sky, deep in thought. _'I'm still too weak.'_ He thought, thinking back to his fights, most importantly his fight with Orochimaru. _'Maybe I should what Yugao-chan said.'_

* * *

**Author's Note (A/N):**

**Well chapter 7 is finally out. I'm sorry for the long wait, but as I've stated on my profile I went through some kind of writer's block. ****While I knew exactly what I want to write and even had lots of ideas, I just didn't feel like writing much (blame the good weather, my laziness ...). As such the chapter only grew in very small steps. But now I've finally finished it.**

**Seeing as the summer is approaching and I like spending time outside, I'm sorry to say that updates will most likely continue to take a while.**

**

* * *

  
**

**Now on to important things like the new chapter:**

**I'm not entirely happy with how this chapter turned out to be, because I wanted to show Naruto's progress but at the same time Sasuke had to stay with Orochimaru. So I hope you all like how I made that fight turn out.**

**

* * *

  
**

**I've added a new poll in my profile:**

**With whom should I pair Naruto up expect for Yugao?**

**The NarutoxYugao pairing won't change, no matter what. Also there will be another female with which Naruto will be paired up later on. Those two won't change, no matter what the poll says. So the question is: should he have a few one-night stands with other females, seeing that he and Yugao won't be in a real relationship for a while at least, or not.**

**Go to my profile and vote for what you want.**

**

* * *

  
**

**The next chapter is obviously the beginning of Naruto's training. What else I'll put in there will be surprise, so you'll just have to wait and see. **

**Read & Review**


End file.
